Daily Herald opinion: Search for perfect balance for regulating short-term rentals is hard, but necessary

The construction of a treehouse that was rented to vacationers led Schaumburg to establish regulations for short-term rentals.

Eight years later, village leaders find themselves searching for the right balance between a virtually unregulated practice and a commercial activity struggling against burdensome rules. As a board discussion described this week by our Eric Peterson showed, the effort is more complicated than it may at first seem.

At a time when short-term rentals were quaint agreements between a homeowner and vacationers looking for an economical, off-the-beaten path neighborhood experience, an argument could be made for keeping government out of the picture. But with whole businesses now buying up properties to offer on sites like Airbnb and Vrbo, the practice has become much more common and acquired dimensions never originally intended and often disruptive to neighborhoods.

In the words of a Des Plaines alderman during a similar discussion in August, "I don't want to live in the middle of a hotel district." People who buy homes in suburban neighborhoods certainly don't expect to be moving into commercial districts and shouldn't have to contend with parking problems, noise or even crime - all issues that have emerged in various communities, including a 2020 shooting that led to one death and six injuries in Roselle.

But banning short-term rentals wouldn't necessarily halt the practice and could simply force it underground where a village would have a harder time monitoring and regulating it, as Schaumburg Village President Tom Dailly argued. Schaumburg Trustee Brian Bieschke added that the rentals provide another option for attracting people to town, where they can enjoy the village and patronize its businesses.

So where exactly is the best point between the two extremes? Schaumburg's current 20-hour minimum requirement seems so short as to almost invite abuses from would-be partyers, but the suggested requirement of at least 30 days seems practically prohibitive for a typical family vacation or weekend getaway. A fee structure that's reasonably comparable to what's required of convention hotels and motels makes sense, and surely rules can be imposed to ensure that visitors to short-term rentals respect the environment of the neighborhood where they are staying.

Ultimately, settling on these and other considerations is likely best determined by the leaders of individual communities. For their part, Schaumburg trustees have postponed further discussion until they can get more data on the impact of short-term rentals in the community.

That's reasonable thinking. Decisions should always be made on the basis of fact and experience. Without question, though, the facts and experiences of short-term rentals generally has made it clear that leaders must act and decisions must be made.