County board approves weekend rentals in residential zones

Oneida County will allow weekend stays in residential and other zoning districts, voting 12-5 last week to amend its tourist rooming house ordinance to permit rentals of less than seven days.

However, tourist rooming house (TRH) owners in the affected districts are still limited to no more than one rental per seven-day period.

More specifically, the change, approved at the board’s January 20 meeting, revises the zoning code to allow a single short-term rental within a rolling seven-day window in five zoning districts where such stays had previously been prohibited, including single-family residential, rural residential, manufacturing/industrial, and two forestry districts.

Supporters said the amendment reflects an evolution in tourism needs and preferences, supports small business owners, and secures tourism dollars that now flee to neighboring counties when visitors cannot find short-term lodging in Oneida County.

Opponents warned that the change could exacerbate housing shortages, undermine the stability of single-family neighborhoods, and create an enforcement nightmare for county officials.

The vote was the latest chapter in a simmering national and local debate about how to regulate the explosive growth of short-term rentals nationwide, in Wisconsin, and in the Northwoods. According to a 2025 report by Granicus, by 2024, the U.S. short-term rental industry had surpassed 2.4 million listings, representing 1.8 million unique rental properties. 

The average number of such properties per state as of that year was 35,937. In Wisconsin, there were 30,088 listings in July 2024, the Granicus report stated.

Under the previous county code, renting short term effectively restricted travelers to  a minimum seven-night stay. 

The amended ordinance means property owners may now rent for a weekend or a two- or three-day stay, but may not host more than one group over any seven-day period in 1B Forestry, 1C Forestry, Single Family, Manufacturing/Industrial, and Rural Residential districts.

The ordinance does not eliminate or change other ordinance standards, such as occupancy limits, parking requirements, or the requirement that tourist rooming houses obtain administrative review permits.

Enforcement doubts

Almost immediately last Tuesday, the board’s discussion turned to a familiar question: How exactly would the county enforce the new rule?

Oneida County zoning director Karl Jennrich said his department did not actively look for violations.

“How it works is, the department may receive a complaint,” Jennrich said. “We aren’t actively looking for the violations, but if they’re brought to our attention, either by a town or a neighbor, what we end up doing is looking on the internet at the listings on VRBO, Airbnb, Pacaso, whatever the site may be, and seeing how they’re advertising.”

And if they’re advertising for weekend rentals, for example, Jennrich said they call them.

“Depending on the zoning district, all we can do is look at the listing,” he said. “The other opportunity we have to possibly enforce is, you look at the ratings. So if someone says, ‘We had a great weekend, we had an awesome weekend,’ we may have the ability to enforce that and to say they’re in violation of the six consecutive days or greater rental.”

As for the amendment at hand, Jennrich said he would advise that, if the goal was to allow short-term rentals, then the county might just say that specifically, instead of wording it as one rental within seven consecutive days.

“What I foresee happening — and I stand before you stating that I don’t think we would enforce this — if someone wants to stay a Friday to a Sunday, technically they could not rent that next weekend because there’s only four days between Sunday and that Friday,” he said. “So if you do want to allow weekend rentals or short-term rentals, you may just want to say that.”

Jennrich said he did foresee a problem trying to enforce the weekend stays: “I think that would be a cat-and-mouse game for us to try to police that.”

County board chairman Scott Holewinski wondered how the county could enforce the ordinance even when someone complains, given that the zoning department has no authority to enter a house to count the number of people.

“The only way we can enforce it is by looking at the listing,” Jennrich repeated. “Again, we have received complaints from neighbors, but again, the problem is that the staff itself is supposed to collect evidence because we’re the ones that have to defend the enforcement action we are taking. It is hard to subpoena someone to provide us with that evidence.”

Can towns opt out?

Several supervisors questioned whether towns that oppose weekend rentals would have any practical way to block them. Jennrich said they likely could not do so by ordinance. 

“The town by their local ordinance would have to try to be more restrictive, and I do not believe they would withstand a challenge because the theory is you’re supposed to treat people in different towns and similar zoning districts the same,” he said.

Another option would be to create a new zoning district, but that, too, creates legal questions, not to mention a cumbersome process.

“The only one that I’ve been intimately involved with is the creation of what they call Forestry1C  in the town of Hazelhurst,” Jennrich said. “The town of Hazelhurst had some forestry 1A or 1B properties that sold. The town was interested in larger parcels that I think are 10-acre minimums, so I worked with their town supervisor and town board to try to create a zoning district. And what they end up doing is rezoning those parcels to that zoning district, again, to allow for these larger parcels and also allow different types of use within those districts.” 

Supervisor Steven Schreier said the system was already complicated.

“And then you’re really saying you could make it more complicated,” Schreier said, referring to a map splotched with different colors representing different zoning districts. “You could put more different colors and shades and et cetera, and make it more burdensome, and then just probably require more staff time to be dedicated to really policing what people should be able to do with their property as adjudicated through our state assembly. I don’t know why we would want to make it harder to bring money —  tourist dollars — into Oneida County, but it sure sounds like we’re trying our damnedest to do that. I’m not sure I get it.”

The way the ordinance is written now creates more frustration if the county accepted the proposed changes, Schreier said.

Housing crisis versus tourism economy

Opponents saw the issue as both a matter of neighborhood character and a raging housing shortage, especially in the Northwoods.

Supervisor Billy Fried, noting that this was the third time the issue had come before the board, said he couldn’t find a single-family constituency that supported the change.

“The key thing here for me is, and I asked all of you last time we spoke about this, if you’ve talked to someone in your district who lives in a single-family home that is for this, I’d love to hear that because I have yet to talk to anyone who is for anything that makes it easier [for rentals],”  Fried said.

Fried acknowledged those from the community who spoke at the meeting’s outset, who argued that the current ordinance limits their ability in single-family districts. Fried said he was simply trying to protect single-family neighborhoods.

“We have a housing crisis here,” he said. “There’s plenty of other districts that can do it for less than seven days. Are people doing it now? Yeah, probably. I mean, fundamentally, the language [change] is probably very minor, but for me, I perceive it as telling the people in my district that, ‘yeah, I want to ignore the housing crisis and I want to make it easier.’ Some staff members told me that, as hard as it is to enforce currently, this will only make it worse.”

At the end of the day, Fried said it was frustrating that the issue just keeps coming back.

“It’s the same speech I gave before,” he said. “I’m trying to protect single-family and recognize the housing crisis.”

Fried recalled that on prior occasions, the thinking was to create a new zoning district for shorter stays.

“When it first came through, we said, ‘If there are towns that want to have this, you can create a zoning district that can be adopted by those towns that want to do it and bring it to the county board,’” he said. “This board sees probably 10 to 12 rezones a year.”

While this would be creating a new zoning district, it’s similar to a rezone, Fried said.

“And we’ve had public meetings,” he said. “Today, there are people who spoke for it, but at planning and zoning, we had public hearings. I remember this one guy came up. He was from Lake Tomahawk, and boy, oh boy, he could not understand why we’re considering to make it any easier with what’s going on out there.”

Fried said he understood the implications for the county’s tourism economy.

“But I can’t support it, and I hope you won’t as well,” he said.

Supervisor Collette Sorgel, the author of the resolution, said she wanted to make sure everyone understood the pros and cons of both sides. 

“We have constituents that are small business owners that are entrepreneurs, and this helps support that,” Sorgel said. “It helps support economic development because it does keep more money in the area versus going to other counties. I am a homeowner, too, and we live in an old resort, and if somebody acts up when they’re visiting, as the owner, I go and talk to the neighbors and ask. So I’m just making sure that we all understand that these small business owners are our constituents, too, and they have a right to be heard also.”

Supervisor Bob Almekinder countered with his personal experience.

“I don’t know how many of you have lived next to a tourist rooming house,” Almekinder said. “I lived next to one for four years. The owner lived in California. It was a nightmare. I had to get up in the morning to go to work, parties going on.” 

Sometimes they were limited to eight people, but once there were 25 at the rental, Almekinder said. 

“So I bought my lot 45 years ago thinking I was in a single-family neighborhood,” he said. “Well, that changed real fast, and all of a sudden I lived next to a hotel. I’m definitely going to vote against this.” 

Supervisor Linnaea Newman also offered her personal experience, but in support of the resolution.

“I’m just going to say that the way it’s set up now, it limits my spending of my tourist dollars,” Newman said. “I know I live in Oneida County, but at least twice a year there are things that come up, like weekend weddings or family gatherings, and although my property is in Rhinelander and the town of Crescent, I might want to go to a two-day wedding in Three Lakes and rent a B&B for two days and not have to drive back and forth from that place.”

This had come up for her personally, Newman said.

“I’m thinking I’m not the only one that would spend more money in another community if I had that advantage,” she said. “Now, because I didn’t, I drive back and forth between Three Lakes in that instance and Rhinelander, and I don’t spend any money in Three Lakes. I come home and I eat or have a snack or whatever and go to bed and go back to the next day.”

Newman said she wouldn’t necessarily rent a hotel room.

“I’ve got dogs and I want a place that I can negotiate taking the dogs with me and having a place away from home as a base,” she said. “So I’m not going to spend money in the bars and the restaurants or anything else in that area. I’m going to spend my gas money driving back and forth.”

It’s not just Three Lakes, Newman said. 

“I’ve had that instance come up several other times where I just wanted to go someplace for two days or three days, and it was limited,” she said. “So if I’m noticing that I’m not spending those potential tourist dollars, I can’t be the only one.”

Supervisor Robb Jensen said it was a complicated issue.

“The tough part for me is, what is the advantage of bringing additional dollars into Oneida County for the shorter stays?” Jensen asked. “In some ways, if you can only rent to only one person every seven days and the person is there for only three, I’ve got four days when no one’s there.”

The key is whoever is managing the facilities, Jensen said. 

“And if you’ve got a good manager, I think the problems are less,” he said. “I also grew up next to an access lot for 29 properties. Overall, not many problems. But I also understand Bob’s point, you can get 12 people that are up there, and they are going to let it go for whatever.”

A year-long procedural detour

At the beginning of the deliberation, Jennrich went over the resolution’s timeline, having originated in June 2025 when Sorgel proposed amending the ordinance.

The short-term rental ordinance itself had followed changes in state law enacted in 2017, which voided Oneida County’s prohibition on short-term rentals of 30 days or less in single-family districts. After the law took effect, the county complied but prohibited rentals of six days or less in several zoning districts, including single-family, while allowing them in business, recreational, and multi-family districts.

The planning and development committee held public hearings in late 2018 and early 2019 before adopting the seven-day minimum. When Sorgel proposed loosening that rule, the committee again took up the issue — and recommended denial.

But when the denial report came before the full county board last August, supervisors declined to accept it, triggering what Jennrich called “a convoluted process” under state statute.

Because the board refused to accept the denial, the zoning committee was legally required to draft the ordinance anyway and send it back to the board for a final up-or-down vote.

“So what ends up happening,” Jennrich explained, “is the planning and development committee has no choice but to resubmit this ordinance amendment to the Oneida County Board of Supervisors.”

Jennrich emphasized that the resubmission did not reflect committee support.

Support for the status quo minimum of seven-day stays has come primarily from the town of Minocqua, though last week supervisors from Lake Tomahawk and Woodruff voted against the change, reflecting mixed feelings across the county’s municipalities. 

However, it is also true that, when queried by the zoning department, four towns supported the change, four opposed it, but the majority expressed no opinion at all.

Others have said in the past that the whole debate may be mostly for nothing, with the change not really making a significant difference.

“I don’t see a huge difference with it,” supervisor Dan Hess said last year. “One rental per seven days is basically what you got now, and I’ve said that in the zoning meetings.”

As for enforcement, assistant zoning director Tod Troskey said there were about 100 complaints per year.

“Some [relate to] longer stays, others to shorter days, and to noise complaints and things that we don’t really regulate,” he said. “It’s all over the board for complaints that actually come in here.”

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.