Oneida zoning suspends TRH permit

After numerous complaints and warnings, the Oneida County zoning committee earlier this month suspended the permit for a Minocqua tourist rooming house and set a time frame of 60 days for the owner to work with zoning staff to create a reasonable business plan that resolves the problems neighbors have complained about.

Crescent Lake Getaway, owned by Troy Venus of Weston, has been the subject of multiple resident complaints this year, and the county zoning staff had gathered significant evidence on its own. Allegedly violating occupancy and length-of-stay permit conditions were at the center of violations, but neighbors also complained about noise and trespassing and large bonfires, among other things.

According to the permit, the rental must be occupied for at least six consecutive days or more, and they have a maximum occupancy of six people for its three bedrooms, but the county said their investigation showed the house has been advertised as being available for two or three nights, and advertised for 10 or 12 guests.

Those advertisements have continued, zoning director Karl Jennrich said at an August 2 hearing in Woodruff.

“On VRBO, the occupancy was listed as six guests with maximum three nights stay; on Airbnb, occupancy six guests maximum, three nights stay, and Booking.com occupancy of 10 guests and seven nights stay, so that was just what we saw on the internet today,” Jennrich said.

At the hearing, Venus spoke in his defense, saying the property was not really rented for fewer than seven days, despite being advertised that way.

“We’ve been advertising for shorter stays, and that’s kind of what people are interested and want to do up here,” Venus said, adding that, while people may rent for three days, the other four are blocked out.

“We still meet the requirement of a seven-day booking,” he said. “So somebody books me for four days, we’re able to offer them three additional days to ultimately block off a seven-day period whether it be a Tuesday to Tuesday or Wednesday to Wednesday, depending on when that booking comes in. Regardless of when that booking comes in, it still becomes a seven-day rental.”

As for occupancy, Venus said they had not been counting infants and children as part of the occupancy cap because they did not have an impact on the septic system, but adjusted bookings after talking with Jennrich. He also said there were discrepancies about the number of beds in the house.

“We have six beds, a queen bed, king bed, and four single beds,” he said. “That’s just to give people opportunity of where they want to sleep. We’ve had several groups of six men or women that have slept at our house. They’ve chosen not to share a bed so they use all six beds. We also provide several air mattresses for people to sleep on and, again, we’ve had several times where people don’t want to climb the top bunk.”

So the booking might say there’s nine or 10 beds, Venus said, but that’s just included in the total number of beds that are available for guests to use. 

“So this offers us a broader audience that we can cater to and gives them the opportunity to choose how they best want to sleep at that property,” he said. 

Venus said he knew there were complaints about the number of guests at the property. Twice this year the police had been called, Venus acknowledged.

“I believe in February, there were complaints about 12 people there racing down the road and again I have a camera on the property that indicated that there was nobody there at the time at four o’clock in the morning as it was indicated,” he said.

The police officer also said there was no one there, Venus said. 

“And so they complained that there were 12 people there, but in fact there was zero when the officer arrived,” he said.

The same scenario played out over a complaint about loud music, Venus said.

“In the police officer’s dialogue, he actually says there’s no music on his arrival so I don’t know if it got turned down before he got there,” he said. 

Venus addressed various other complaints, such as ATVs driving on neighboring properties, as well as snowmobiles and large campfires. Venus said there had never been an ATV on his property, and he certainly did not give anyone permission to drive across someone else’s property. He said he also could not substantiate complaints about snowmobiles, even after driving to the property from Weston.

The neighbors beg to differ

A healthy contingent of neighbors spoke against Venus, telling the committee he wasn’t telling the truth. One of those was Tanya Borst.

“Troy [Venus] has stood here before you and told you that he has not done this or not seen this, but what we all know as a group of neighbors is he’s lied to all of us since the first time any of us have ever contacted him,” Borst said. “Just two weeks ago there were rentals that came in and stayed for three nights within the same seven-day period. So when he is telling you that he’s blocking it off as a full rental, he’s actually not.”

And, Borst said, as was noted at the hearing, Venus was still not advertising the proper amount of nights.

“On Memorial Day weekend there were 15 people there, the police were called that day for noise,” she said. “What nobody has said was, the police were also called because the renters were shooting BB guns into the lake at his duck decoys while there were children on kayaks right in that same vicinity.”

Early on, Borst said she had sent Venus a message, in March, wishing him a successful business.

“But then from March until now, the more he violates and the more things that have come up and become a problem, I really don’t want to see the rental business there anymore at all,” she said.

Kristine Rank, who lives two doors down from the rental, also accused Venus of “many falsehoods” that needed to be corrected. She described the neighborhood as a place where law-abiding local residents simply wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet.

“I just want to let you know where we live is a 16-acre lake, about a mile and a half off Hwy. 70, and it’s non-motorized, and it’s people that work in this area,” Rank said. “It’s the people that work at Subway. It’s a construction worker. It’s the people that run this community in the shops, and we just want to go home and have peace and quiet when we go home.”

Rank said she was not saying that no renters should be allowed.

“But we follow the laws and the rules and we expect it from other people also,” she said. “It’s simply not true that he rents to people for a week. I can see his house, his driveway. Not one time has somebody been there for a full week, ever.”

Two weeks earlier, Rank said she encountered two renters walking her property, unaware they were trespassing, who revealed they were renting for three nights.

“That was two weeks ago,” she said. “He knew this hearing was coming from the last hearing and he’s still doing it. He’s making a mockery of the system.”

Tom Irwin said he had owned property on Crescent Lake for 33 years. 

“Throughout the years we have preserved and respected the lake and surroundings,” Irwin said. “This changed last fall when Troy Venus turned this tranquility into large disturbances. We’ve observed several incidents since the start of Troy’s Crescent Lake Getaway that we feel are unethical and sometimes unlawful.”

Just this spring, Irwin said, there was a large bonfire burning out of the property during a deck replacement project: “This fire burned day and night during a burning ban in place.”

Other speakers struck similar notes and relayed similar experiences.

Committee deliberates

For his part, during committee deliberations, Jennrich said he had mostly technical discussions with Venus, such as renting out for three days but blocking the entire seven-day period out. He said he had also followed up with the corporation counsel’s office and they did not believe the county could enforce that as an infraction.

“So what he’s doing is, you put for three to four days but the calendar blocks out for seven,” Jennrich said. “But again I did state to him that your advertisements should say what the maximum length of stay should be, which is six consecutive days or greater. He should not be advertising for three-night stays.”

During the discussion, the committee concluded that the permit violations were real and that Venus was not in compliance, hence the motion to suspend for 60 days or until Venus and zoning staff can craft a plan that satisfies the committee that the neighbors’ concerns will be resolved.

The motion passed unanimously.