New Regulations Coming...what to do?

[Pam Smith]

Hi everybody-

We have our first STR in a tourist destination and had a very successful first season. This area has perhaps 1000 permanent residents and the primary economy is tourism and always has been. However, we just heard that the area, and specifically our town, is considering new regulations and wanted to see if anybody has any advice. This is completely new as when we bought our place, we checked with the village and nobody was even considering any regulations. I just found out about this on Friday, so haven't had a chance to call the village board to get any additional information.

The regulations being considered that will affect us the most:

1. -Talking about requiring a minimum rental night of 7 nights. We rarely rent for 7 nights and obviously make more money with more turnovers
2. -Cannot rent for more than 180 consecutive days. Not sure why this is being implemented and how they define it. This year we rented from May-October but we only got it up and running in May and need to put in central heat to rent it year round.
3. -Property manager or owner must live within 25 miles of property and must be available 24/7. Currently we self-manage and have a great cleaning team. My guess is we'll have to figure out an agreement with the cleaning team, but we'll obviously have to pay more to them.
4. -Limit maximum number of renters to two/bedroom plus two additional occupants, whichever is less. We have 4 bedrooms but can sleep 10 with a sleeper sofa
5. -Our parking area is gravel and they're saying parking has to be on asphalt!
6. -No outdoor fire pit - people love to have a fire and roast s'mores. Could be a deterrent if other villages decide not to enact this same ban.

Questions:

1. -Do we consider selling at this point if these regulations become law and if the numbers don't net us as much as we're doing now or do you think people will raise prices since everybody will be in the same boat?
2. -Do we have any legal considerations?
3. -What other questions should we bring up at the meeting or to the village board?

Thanks!