Priorities

Steve Eatough

Door County not only needs to be a nice place to visit, it also needs to be a great place to live. Quality of life is why most people choose to live here. However, I believe that our quality of life in northern Door County is being threatened and diminished from out of balance over tourism and increased development.

Door County’s accommodations and food service industry, the basic tourism industry, is indeed important. The Door County Economic Development Corporation reports that these categories represent about 9% of Door County’s total goods and services produced. Approximately 1 in 5 jobs is in the tourism category, the other four jobs are not.

The Door County Tourism Commission reports that room occupancy was up 26.4% over June 2019. For the first 6 months of 2021, room tax collections were up a whopping 54%, or $689,400, over 2019! Why then does Destination Door County, that receives 70% of the room tax revenue, now need to increase the room tax from 5.5% to 8%? That’s a 45% increase.

Do we really need to attract more northern Door tourists? Of course, the towns and villages acquiesce, as they’re receiving the remaining 30% of the money. What’s all that money going to be used for?

I believe that people come here primarily to enjoy Door County’s natural beauty. Of course, people enjoy all the manmade amenities, but the natural beauty is the real draw. What portion of the millions of dollars of room tax is currently being used to plan, preserve, and protect our fragile Door County environment?

The problem is Door County has no comprehensive development plan, and no uniform zoning ordinance. Door County is often compared to Cape Cod. Both are highly valued destination tourism areas. But Cape Cod, with over twice the tourists, has done a much better job of tourism management and preservation of its natural resources and environment. They have created a very successful county wide comprehensive zoning plan and regulatory structure. I think we could learn something from Cape Cod’s example. Some of the millions of dollars in room tax could be more wisely invested here in Door County.

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