Determining the proper rules to rent out your home as a short-term rental continues to be an ongoing discussion, no matter what side of the issue you are on. Rep. Joel Kitchens met with stakeholders on Monday as part of a roundtable to discuss short-term rentals and their impact on communities. Short-term rentals have garnered headlines over the years as local municipalities, realtors, and others try to decide on the proper regulations. Municipalities have placed some restrictions on short-term rental owners, such as using minimum stay requirements and mandating that a person be available to oversee the property in cases of emergency. Judges have also ruled against municipalities in recent months, including earlier in June when a Sister Bay property owner argued successfully that the village could not deny them a STR license because of violations that are grandfathered in. Separate STR owners are arguing with the Village of Sister Bay that a bedroom limit is also unenforceable. Kitchens says the meeting took place at the request of local realtors, who say STRs are property rights issues. After assembling a group that represented groups from both sides of the issue and included representatives from neighboring Brown and Kewaunee counties, he says the argument between property rights and “treating a business like a business” is complex to get past because it is not a problem everyone sees in the state.

Kitchens previously led an effort to require STR websites like Airbnb and Vrbo to collect room taxes to distribute to local municipalities. While he says he is talking to some of his colleagues in the Wisconsin Legislature about the issue, he admits most are more focused on getting the 2025-2027 budget approved.