Village Tightens Rules for Future STRs in Residential Zones

Short-term-rental properties created after December 2023 will have stricter rules guiding operations within the Village of Egg Harbor. Source: Village of Egg Harbor.

New application and annual fee applies to all STRs

The Egg Harbor Village Board this month tightened its short-term-rental (STR) rules within its residential districts, but only for future STRs, not those in existence as of December 2023. 

The revised ordinance passed this month limits owners of properties in districts zoned Rural Residential or Residential (R-1) to renting out their properties for no more than 180 days in a calendar year.

In addition, the ordinance limits the amount of times an STR can be rented each week to “just one period of time in a consecutive six-day period for a minimum of two consecutive nights.”

The time specifications in the new ordinance do not apply to STRs that were in place prior to the village approving the ordinance in December 2023. They would take effect when a property changes hands. 

STRs are, by state statute, residential dwellings offered for rent for fewer than 30 consecutive days. State statute does not allow municipalities to ban STRs, but village and town boards throughout the county have been changing their rules within the limits of the law to minimize the influx and turnover of nonresidents. 

Karen Berndt, owner of Door County Escapes, objected to the village “lumping Rural Residential” locations in with R-1. She also objected to STRs being subject to the 180-day-per-year limitation, saying she and other owners still need some revenue in the winter. She also questioned the limit to one rental in a six-day span, and asserted that having rooms rented for two or three days by one customer and three by another in a six-day span brings in people who help local businesses. 

The board agreed to eliminate a provision that would require a property owner to obtain a new rental license if changing to a different registered agent. Via Zoom during the meeting, a property owner, Aaron Quandt, had objected to that provision. Quandt also objected, unsuccessfully, to the provision that limits rentals in those two types of districts to one stay per six days.

Prior to the passage of the STR ordinance, property owners had to fill out a business-license form and pay a $50 fee. The ordinance sets up a new STR application and annual fee of $250 that applies to all STRs, not just those in residential zones, effective July 2024.As of 2022, the village had 94 STRs, and the vast majority of them were in R-1 and Rural Residential districts, plan commission chair and village trustee Cambria Mueller told the Peninsula Pulse in the summer of 2023.