The village of Shorewood will take a closer look at how short-term rentals of residential properties are regulated in town. But, the plan doesn’t exactly have the ringing endorsement from the majority of elected and appointed officials.
On Sept. 11, the board held the first reading of an ordinance that would amend the zoning code with respect to short term rentals. The proposal would first define a “short-term rental” as a single-family dwelling, or a residential dwelling unit in a multi-unit structure that is rented for a fee for less than 30 consecutive days, and would then prohibit such a rental.
Violation of the amendment would be a $250 fine for the first offense, $500 for second, and $750 for any subsequent.
But when the plan went before the Planning and Zoning Commission earlier in the month, commissioners were a hard no, voting unanimously against the change, saying that problem the amendment seeks to solve is limited and infrequent.
The issue was first brought to the board via the Citizens Advisory Committee, where residents said at least one home in town was being utilized as a “party house,” allowing weekend rentals that brought in bands and party buses on weekends, disturbing the peace and causing an all-out ruckus.
But, both plan commissioners and village trustees said that while they sympathize with the issue, it’s not to the point that the village needs to pass a local law.
“It’s a more complicated issue to everyone who was reviewing it,” said Interim Community Development Coordinator Rod Tonelli. “It wasn’t necessarily spoken, but I think based on the tone of the conversation and comments from the plan commissioners, my take away was that the reason for the unanimous denial, they did not feel the problem was as systemic as to warrant a legislative response at this point… The simplified version was, they did not see this as the right solution for problem.”
Additionally, those opposed to the change said the ban on short term leases would have some unintended consequences, including make illegal the short-term accommodations that some people use when they are displaced from their homes due to damage from fire or natural disasters.
Village officials also said there are already nuisance ordinances on the books to deal with noise violations and loud neighbors.
“This thing as it’s written is extremely restrictive,” said Trustee Dan Warren. “This thing does not take into any consideration the examples that were put out, like fire or something like that. This thing is way too restrictive… If it’s one house, why are we making a blanket statement.”
But Trustee Anthony Luciano, who is the board liaison to the Citizens Advisory Board, said he didn’t want to see the village disregard the amendment altogether, since it was the fruit of legitimate complaints from residents.
“This is something that was generated back from a complaint to the board from a resident, who happened to live by a home where this was going on, a short-term rental. There were numerous complaints also on social media related to it,” he said.
Luciano added that the infrequency of the issue does not mean that it isn’t important enough to be addressed.
“It seems like most of the things we do pass, once something happens in town, so we have an ordinance, are limited and infrequent,” Luciano said. “There are instances with noise control in different parts of the village that just happen once, but we act upon it. Now, maybe this needs some work, and we need to come up with something that works for both sides, but, the bottom line is we leave it in a situation where we have a resident that complained, people are concerned about it, and if we ask those people, they still haven’t solved their problem by saying that we have ordinances for it. Because in many cases… there’s nothing we can do about it. You send the police out there, for noise ordinance, sometimes there’s nothing they can do. No one wants to sign the complaint.”
Luciano said the issue merits more discussion and asked that the amendment be tweaked and brought back to the board.
The board took no action on the amendment. The issue is expected to come back to the board on Sept. 25.