Tourist Rooming Houses are Changing the Lake Experience for Many Visitors
Tourist Rooming Houses (TRH) are rapidly becoming a common feature on Oneida County’s lakeshores. Visitors in search of the Northwoods vacation experience use on-line services such as Airbnb or VRBO to discover short-term lake home rental opportunities. Second-home owners are taking advantage of this expanding rental market. As a result, many traditional lakeside family cabins and second homes are functionally transitioning from single family residences to lucrative businesses, some with distant corporate ownership.
This raises a few questions on the lake. How might this rapid transition on our lakeshores impact; …lake ecology? …a busy lake’s recreational capacity? …a lake association’s ability to engage shoreland owners and users in lake improvement activities?
On the regional level, what impact does this trend have upon local housing prices and availability? What impact does the paucity of available housing have upon our local economy? Do county planning and zoning departments have the capacity to effectively regulate over 1,000 Tourist Rooming Houses?
OCLRA has these messages for short term renters and TRH lake property owners: