Residential Dwelling Rentals Bill Now Starting in State Senate
December 14, 2015
Dear WH&LA Lodging Member:
As you were advised last week, the Assembly Committee on Housing and Real Estate held a hearing last Thursday that covered AB 583 on Residential Dwelling Rentals with five other controversial bills. WH&LA testified in opposition to this bill, which was the last bill heard after eight hours of testimony for the remaining five legislators patiently listening to all comments. The League of Municipalities also testified in opposition, with the Wisconsin Realtors speaking in favor along with a large vacation home rental company from the Lake Geneva area and a single rental owner from southeastern Wisconsin as well.
While the Committee will not meet again until sometime in January, and there was no commitment as to which bills they would have an Executive Session on then (when they vote on bills which then are stopped or advanced to the full Assembly), we are hoping that between emails sent by all of you and our meetings with legislators we can try to negotiate something more reasonable.
We now have the Senate version of the same bill - SB 446 on Residential Dwelling Rentals - introduced late Thursday by State Sen. Frank Lasee, that similar to the Assembly bill, was introduced with a hearing by the Senate Committee on Government Operations and Consumer Protection
immediately scheduled for this Thursday, Dec. 18 in room 300 Southeast of the Capitol immediately following a 12:30 pm Executive Session on other bills.
What does this mean? Once again, if you do not support this option for what they are loosely defining as Residential Dwelling Rentals, which allows these owners to rent out investment properties for seven days or more without being licensed, without collecting or paying state and county sales taxes, and avoiding zoning ordinances you will need to contact the following Senate Committee members no later than by 9:00 am Thursday to ask them to oppose the bill as currently stated and to let lodging representatives explore more fair language before approving wide-based exceptions to regulations impacting Wisconsin's lodging industry.
Senate Committee on Government Operations and Consumer Protection
It would also be helpful to copy your own State Senator, so they are aware of your position in the event this continues on a fast track through to the full state Senate. While WH&LA will testify in opposition to SB 446, if they solely hear our voice and not the voices of actual lodging owners and operators, it will be difficult to stop this proposal in it's current format.
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