🎯 STRisker: Bulletin - Kent County, DE
Kent County Cracks Open the Door to More STRs - Voted This Week to Relax Rules on Short-term Rentals
A Deep Dive into Your Area’s STR Updates — Helping You Navigate the Ever-Changing Rental Landscape.
Kent County Cracks Open the Door to More STRs
Big news out of Kent County: short-term rentals just got a lot more wiggle room. The county’s Levy Court unanimously approved a measure this week to loosen restrictions on STRs—those rentals under 30 days you often find listed on Airbnb or VRBO.
Here’s the key change: before, if you owned a short-term rental on less than five acres, you had to actually live on the property. That’s right—owner occupancy was required unless you had serious land to spare. But as of Tuesday night, that rule is history. The county has officially scrapped both the acreage threshold and the live-on-site requirement.
“So this eliminates that condition altogether,” said County Planning Director Sarah Kiefer, breaking it down clearly for commissioners. “There will be no five-acre limit. There will be no owner occupancy requirement.”
That’s a big shift—and not everyone’s thrilled. The county’s Regional Planning Commission had previously urged the Levy Court not to approve this change. They raised red flags about what this could mean for neighborhoods that are already tightly packed.
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Commissioner Denise Kaercher voiced those concerns earlier this month: “If I lived in a condo or attached home—or even single homes that were in a really, you know, every lot a postage stamp—I wouldn’t want my close neighbors renting out a dwelling continually to different people, different people, different people.”
Despite the caution from the planning commission, all seven Levy Court commissioners gave the new policy a green light.
The move reflects a growing trend across the country—communities trying to strike a balance between housing flexibility and neighborhood stability. For Kent County, that needle has now moved in favor of STR property owners and investors.
What’s next? Property owners who were previously limited by the five-acre rule or residency requirements may now move forward with STR plans, no strings attached. But with that freedom may come a new wave of community pushback, especially in higher-density areas.
For now, though, Kent County’s STR gate just swung wide open.
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