VRBO has become a popular way to rent vacation and other properties over the last decade. Typically, a property owner utilizes a website to advertise and rent their property. In Crow Wing County, it is estimated that over 1,000 properties are offered as VRBO. As the practice has grown, so has the resistance. Municipalities are restricting, or banning altogether the use of VRBOs in their communities. These are businesses operating on private property, taking revenue from legitimate resorts. Renters don't have a vested interest in the property or surrounding environment. Homes or cabins that were intended to house 4-8 people are now advertised as renting for 10-20 people. Private septic systems were never intended to handle commercial amounts of wastewater. The Whitefish chain had an unusual algae bloom in 2018. I had foam washing up on my shore last summer, something I had never seen before.
There needs to be an ordinance that ensures the safe and reasonable level of operation of VRBOs. Several other lake-oriented counties have created these ordinances, including Aitkin, Douglas (Alexandria), Stearns (St. Cloud), Mille Lacs, Lake (northeast Minnesota), Otter Tail (Fergus Falls) and Itasca. Crow Wing County should have been one of the first to enact such an ordinance based on the pristine quality of their lakes. Over the past year I have attempted to get the county board and Crow Wing County Land Services to create such an ordinance. So far they have not. Land Services claims that only a few people have complained, and that the problem is too big to handle now. They have only themselves to blame for the magnitude of the current situation. I am hoping that the newly elected and current county board members will see fit to enable such an ordinance.
Dave Williams
Merrifield
Brainerd lakes area cabin owner
