Rhinelander City Council talks short term stay, long term parking

One of the items taken up by the Rhinelander city council at their last meeting was the short-term rental ordinance. The issue has been a hot button across not just the Northwoods, but the whole state. How to regulate those sort of rentals has not always been clear, and the city has not had an ordinance governing those rentals. The issue has been long under review by the city and two versions of a short term rental ordinance were in front of the council this week.

“If you strive for the perfect ordinance, you’re probably not going to get the perfect ordinance,” said city administrator Patrick Reagan. “I would say shooting for helping the community as a whole is what we want to go for here.”

There was some talk about how long the issue had been in front of the city council.

“I don’t think the issue should be how many times this has been before us, but the issue should be, have we got it right?” alderman Gerald Anderson said. He said he was not comfortable with the language that allowed a short term rental to be rented for only six days in any one week. “What if someone comes up to work at the hospital for three weeks?” he asked. He understood the concern over the possible type of people that would be renting these short term rentals, but added that he had spoken with the police department and found there had been no issues in the nine short term rental properties within the city.

There were people who wanted to prevent this entirely.

“If there is a question as to why we are approving this ordinance, I think, being that this is a public council, I think that debate needs to be had, if that’s the debate we want to have, as far as to the validity of this ordinance,” said alderman Steven Jopek. He said he felt the ordinance as written served the direction the city had been going, he said he was still for discussing whether short term rentals should be regulated.

“I understand the importance of having a discussion on why the ordinance is important, why we need it, if, indeed we need it,” said council member David Holt. “What I am trying to prevent, going on almost a year of constantly being, having this, as a de facto filibuster of the process.” He said either the council was going to pass an ordinance on which people have worked a long time, and trust in the staff and the process that created that ordinance, or they were not going to pass it. Either way, he said, it was important to be respectful to the amount of time people have dedicated to the creation of the ordinance. 

“I mean no disrespect to anybody in trying to get the best possible ordinance we can,” Anderson said. He said he was satisfied with most of the ordinance other than the one sentence he called a “key sentence.” He moved to table the matter to one of the meetings in August that seemed appropriate. That motion failed due to lack of a second. The motion to waive the second reading and to pass the revised ordinance ultimately passed.

Results of Brown Street one-way listening session

Mayor Kris Hanus spoke about the recent listening session regarding changing North Brown Street to a one way street. The three things he said he took away from that meeting were that there was no support for making that change. Many residents and business owners stated they opposed that decision. 

Another take away from that meeting was that there was a feeling that there was ample parking downtown, but that people were not aware of the locations of public parking lots. Many residents asked for more signage to those lots.

Lastly, Hanus said, people wanted more controlled traffic downtown. The ask here was to have a four way stop at Brown and Rives as well as Brown and Frederick.

“I’d rather measure twice and cut once,” said Reagan, stating he would like to see if there would be any problems with a four way stop at either of those intersections.

Council member Carrie Mikalauski asked administration for a feasibility study to see if the four-way stops would be the right thing to do. 

Council member Tom Barnett said that he would vote to not change North Brown to a one-way street, he said he was open to the idea originally because the city needs fresh ideas and he thanked the mayor for coming up with fresh ideas, including this one, and getting them out to the public.

Hanus said he had learned that where ideas begin and where they end are often two very different places. He added that if what came from this whole discussion was a safer, more walkable downtown, then he saw that as a win.

Parking lots

Hanus said he asked for a discussion about parking lots to be placed on the agenda because of the feedback from the Brown Street listening session. If the city wanted to move forward with more signage he felt they should first be satisfied with how their parking lots were sitting with permitted parking, overnight parking and locations of parking around the downtown area. 

Reagan said he did not feel the city had a parking problem; it had a walking problem. He said people simply did not want to walk from a parking lot to their destination. 

Alderman Bob Lueder mentioned the Rhinelander Area Chamber of Commerce was also currently working on way-pointing signage for the downtown area. He said before the council directed the administration to work on signage, they should ensure they were not duplicating efforts. 

Holt said he felt it was a good idea to incentivize short term parking on Brown Street, and those who wanted to visit businesses downtown would be better off to park in the parking lots and walk to their destination. He also said he would like to learn more about the issue and have it come back to the council at later meetings.

Beckie Gaskill may be reached via email at [email protected].