Planning Commission - Special Meeting

Tuesday, July 28th. Let's do a call to order, please, Jordan or Casey.

I can.

Guy.

Here.

Johnson is absent. Mooney. Here. Parker.

Here.

Frank is absent. And Chair Bechtel.

All right. Can I get an approval of today's agenda that you see before you? Motion to approve.

Second.

Second by Di. All those in favor? Aye. Great. And then could we look at the approval of the minutes from our last meeting on June 24th, 2026? Could I have a motion on that?

Motion to approve.

Second. Awesome. All those in favor? Aye. All right. Any correspondence tonight, Casey? Unreceived. Awesome. Okay, so we next have for item six, statements of citizens, agenda items only. So we're talking about the text amendment for short-term rental parking standards. So we had some questions for last time for staff to look at, and then they compiled a bunch of background information from other communities we requested. So if you'd like to say anything right now, that'd be a great time. Okay. All right, let's do old business. So how has the research been going, Casey, for the last month?

Okay, we can walk through this agenda together. Went pretty well. Just to recap what you stated, Chair Bechtel. During the last meeting in June, we received a text request from Christopher Hendricks requesting that we reduce our short-term rental parking from two spots requirement to a one spot requirement for up to four occupants. The Planning Commission decided to table that at the last meeting and directed staff to conduct research on sentimental parking across neighboring and similar Lakeshore communities. Research was conducted by reading the ordinances of these neighborhoods, and also I reached out to quite a few zoning administrators for clarification as well. So for the neighboring and similar communities, we have City of Holland, City of Grand Haven, Spring Lake Township, City of Norton Shores, and City of South Haven. And then I have a blurb here for communities mentioned during the last meeting. Staff did not feel these were similar or neighboring communities, as they are pretty heavy Airbnb slash short-term rental cities and communities. as they are Lakeshore properties or Lakeshore communities. We thought it'd be important to add that as Chair Becton noted at the last meeting. Just a quick overview. As you can see, there's not one size fits all. A lot of these different communities do a lot of different things. I did look even further in different communities that aren't on this list but that weren't quite similar to ours and yeah, there's no set in stone order for people to work off of for short-term rentals. It seems like a lot of the communities did trial and error. I talked to South Haven, and they said they had a different ordinance, you know, previously at the last year. It didn't work out, so they then amended it to this. So it seems like a lot of communities are testing what they thought would work, finding out it doesn't, and then amending or, you know, and cutting back or reducing or even going further and allowing more.

So, but these are all that you have listed have all been into their ordinances for that city or village. Those are not part of their ordinances.

These are part of the short-term rental ordinances.

Okay.

So for example, Spring Lake Township does not have a minimum parking space requirement for the short-term rentals in their short-term rental ordinance. However, after speaking with Spring Lake Township, it seems like they just go off of their regular residential parking requirements. Okay. So that may also be the case for Norton Shores. They just go off of what they would require for a normal home, like two parking spaces.

Does a home have to provide two parking spaces?

What? Yes, homes do require to have parking spaces.

What if I wanted to build one garage?

I do not have the ordinance in front of me, so I can't speak to what you guys require, but typically, yes, homes do require, some kind of driveway is required.

Yeah, some kind of driveway, but they're not specifying. You need to provide two spots for my personal home.

I know that some do and some do not. So that's how far I can speak. I don't know what the village does particularly.

There's some interesting...

Thanks for putting this together.

Do you have anything else you wanted to add?

No, that was it. Just for a heads up, when we get to next steps, you ask direct staff to have a public hearing for the August meeting, or you guys can choose to not take this text unit request any further based on discussion tonight. That is it. I'm sorry, can you repeat that? You're talking a little bit too fast.

Oh, sorry. I can just a little bit. Sorry. There we go.

Just to look forward to next steps after this meeting and discussion is completed. You all can direct staff to have a public hearing in August, so for any kind of language you want drafted, or you guys can choose to not pursue this text request further.

Okay, excellent. Thank you. And the Commission would like to ask questions, talk about their opinions. I'd love to hear what everyone's thinking. I know it's just us four, though. So we'll have to speak. And we did get correspondence from Nick.

We did. Oh.

So.

What did it say?

Can I say it, Casey? Or is that violating the Open Meetings Act? Or Jordan?

Or any advice? I just know we can't talk as a board on emails. If you wanna read it out loud.

Yeah, so due to Nick's absence or Commissioner Frank's absence, he did submit his comments as he will not be here tonight. So Chair Bechtel can read those.

Okay, so Nick said, Many communities have standards lower than the minimum two space requirement we have in Spring Lake. I am still hesitant to set a broad precedent of lowering the minimum across the board, but I would support lowering the minimum to one space plus extra for additional bedrooms for multifamily dwellings similar to the city of South Haven. I do not support lowering the minimum on single family structures. With allowing one parking space within multifamily dwellings, there is still a concern about additional parking for renters with multiple cars. I'm not sure how much jurisdiction we have over that. And if that is more of a owner of the STR issue, though, Nick.

OK.

Yes. How about you, Megan?

What are you thinking? I actually really appreciate the data about some of the other condos who are short-term rentals. I would say because these were publicly grandfathered in, there seems to be a mix of units that have two spaces and one space. I think I also echo Nick's sentiments. I'm not inclined to reduce parking. But I am open to the idea, similar to South Haven, where we could do one parking space for a unit of occupancy, four or two bedrooms, but then there would have to be an additional.

Over two bedrooms? Yeah. Okay.

Similar to South Haven. Only for, yeah, multi.

I'd like to clarify just one aspect of this, and I think I understand it based on what was presented at the last meeting. If we were to grant the special use permit, that in no way overrides the apartment or condo management or HOA or whatever the government body is there. In other words, if we grant it, they're not required to honor that.

Yeah, that would be up to...

Whatever the governing body of the unit, they could still say, nope, there's a limit.

Yes, I have a question. Sorry, Megan, it's not you. I just am not getting it. So what are the colors and all that mean?

Yes, so to speak further on that, Chair Bechtel earlier this week requested additional information for the Planning Commission to guide this discussion. She requested the current short-term rentals we have in the village, along with a short-term rental map, which was at you guys' seats when you arrived in. Okay. I believe. may be able to speak on the colors of the Excel?

This is the first page that we got.

The beige are condos, the teal are single family residential.

And these are in the short-term rental district? Those are just all of our short-term rentals. Yes, the next page will have the green ones are... Sorry, why are there gray rows?

Just to divide them out, because I just copy and paste it from my more comprehensive with personal data of owners on it.

So you can see they're organized by street.

Oh, okay, yeah, I was getting confused because of 202 Monarch.

So is the teal a single family? Yep.

Okay, and the beige is condos?

Condos, yep. Okay, so these could be not... The next page is the one that's divided out.

Oh, okay, so it's the two different columns.

Then, Chair, there's also a map at the end of you all's packet showing where the short-term rental overlay is, and then as you can see, there are red squares for the parcels, and then some of them are outside of that short-term rental overlay.

Okay, and then what on the second page, what are the white with no background addresses?

They're not rentals. They could be. Oh, they could be. But they're not for a single family.

Because they're in short-term rental zone?

Yep.

Oh, okay. Oh, okay. But only the yellow is long-term rental. The green, the existing short-term rental is the teal.

The teal ones are in the overlay zone.

Right.

The green ones are outside the overlay zone.

Right.

The white ones are not rented, and the yellow ones are long-term.

But the white ones could be rented.

They're in the overlay zone.

Okay. Okay.

Okay. And then the third page is what? All the condo units in the short-term rental overlay zone.

Oh.

So Marina Bay Condos has 34 units. They're ones that are not registered with us.

So presumably they have a zero tolerance policy for short-term rentals, even though they're in this own.

So that's why Marina Bay Condos doesn't have 34 listings on this page?

Yeah. Right.

Oh, so you looked at Marina Bay's rules?

No, that's just who's registered with us or who we haven't caught yet when we review Airbnbs. Okay.

Okay.

Maybe I'm not getting it. So Marina Bay condos, they have 34.

Because you asked how many rental units were available total in the village. That's how technically they're in the overlay zone. We don't have any registered. So presumably they have a zero tolerance, but that's how many units. Why would those 34 be on this sheet? Because that's single family residential. A lot of times for like single family.

Oh, thank you.

Oh, I see. Okay.

Thank you so much data.

That's a single, SFR, SFR properties in the STRO.

Yeah, I wasn't getting that.

Okay, understood.

Okay, well, wow, that's a lot of different condos that technically could have, from our perspective, be an Airbnb, not technically, whatever their rules are. Okay.

If they chose to allow it.

Yeah, okay.

So, and Windsor is not, is Windsor Place, how's that playing out?

Just opened.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

But they're in a short-term rental area.

But they're not, they're rented, right? But technically, whoever owns Windsor Place, they could rent them. They're in the overlay zone. That was what was asked. Right, people just aren't purchasing them.

But, okay, is Windsor Place condos or rentals?

Apartments their apartment. Yeah, so no one can purchase them only the owner of the Property they own them. Let's say it's the developer but technically that developer could come to us and Make them a short-term rental, but they'd have to provide two parking spots and that place does not have a lot of parking

And in the current situation, they would have to provide two parking places?

Yes. And I don't know their deal with designating, like this is, you know, unit 3A is, you know, little signs. I don't know. I haven't been back there. This is helpful. And then you said there was a map PC, sorry. Okay.

Okay.

That is kind of what I was expecting. I will follow whatever the group decides. This data, my opinion is there are a lot of condos here that we have said, hey, our vision is that we would support considering them being as a short-term rental, and many of these probably don't have two dedicated spaces, so I would be open to revising our language to allow it to be one parking spot. Like I sometimes get an Airbnb by myself. I would, I think it's completely fine to have an apartment listed on Airbnb and you only need one parking spot to make it happen. Um, that's just my opinion, but We can make it as strict as we want, but I think.

Well, I think we gotta, based on the city of South Haven, short-term rental and a multifamily dwelling building, one plus each bedroom over two, I think we have to use our language, which is the number of, was it the dwellings themselves? We aren't getting into bedrooms. We're getting into people, occupants.

Okay, yeah, and I'm fine with however we wanna list it. I'm just saying I don't wanna limit My opinion is I don't think we should limit cutting off anyone who can't provide two spaces. I think there are cases where one parking spot is sufficient dependent on the unit. I know, Megan, you were saying we could even just do it for condos. I know it's confusing, and Cassie had hesitations, but I get what you're saying about the single-family homes staying at two spots. That's valid. What do you think, Kelly?

One consideration that comes up for me is that, you know, really my position hasn't changed from last month. I don't hear Village residents calling out for a bunch more short-term rentals.

Right.

great pressing need for more short-term rentals. What I do hear is that housing is hard to come by. And so I'm reluctant to even take, you know, an apartment with one bedroom and say, oh yeah, let's allow that with one parking space, allow that to become a short-term rental because then that's long-term housing that comes off the market. I strongly, you know, favoring long-term residents over short-term rentals. That said, if others on the group really do want to facilitate that, I'm more open to restricting .

How about you, David?

Oh, well, I guess I'm sort of in between and betwixt with Kelly. Here's the thing that when we were here last month, they had some language for how it would change. It says, the language is how it changes. The minimum of two off-street parking spaces shall be provided per unit. In a multifamily dwelling unit, any unit that does not provide a minimum of two off-street parking shall be limited to a maximum occupancy of four persons.

That was last time.

And so, I mean, if we were to word it, that's one way we could word it. So it doesn't open. But that's being said that limits it to multifamily. But on the other hand, do we open up the doors for everybody who's got two-bedroom houses?

Right, and I think that's where we need to be careful with the language, that we are considering this for multifamily dwellings.

Single families.

If that's the direction we would go. I think though what some of this data also tells me is that there are not as many short-term rentals in the village as I anticipated, truthfully. So if we look at some of these condo associations, and it could be a result of their bylaws, there aren't an abundance of buildings being taken over by short-term rentals.

There's only 14 registered out of hundreds of units.

Do you think that would change dramatically if we take it down to one parking place?

It would have to be an attorney to know that.

I don't know how... Yeah, true.

And I just don't know, like, the whole, you know, you buy a condo and it's like, you sign whatever, I'll follow the rules. I don't know. That's why I said I don't know. I'm not an attorney because I don't know how that holds up. I don't know how strong that is. Yeah, that's what, yes. I don't know how strong that stuff is. That's totally not my expertise. Yeah, I was surprised, too, there's not a lot of short-term rentals, even, like, available, like, there's not that many, really. Seems like West Exchange and East Savage definitely could have more if people applied. I'm not saying we're, like, advertising it for it, but. It's a small percentage, so that's, I guess, encouraging, because I agree with you. I totally want to keep people living here full time.

And there are quite a few properties in the overlay that could be eligible.

Oh, and that is, boom.

Yes, yep, that's correct.

And that is the condos here.

Okay, and then these are the current, currently what's happening. Oh, okay. Not allowed.

Correct.

Nicole Abbott, son of a gun.

I want to be careful to make assumptions, but I think also an area where there are several properties within the village. Sure.

Yeah. Yes, that is true. We'll have here, it's not just families 12 months out of the year, unfortunately. It is so great that this is people's, you know.

So, okay. So do we have to make a motion? Yes.

So we would have to make a motion to direct staff, if we wanted, to draft language for a public hearing in August to amend the short ordinance. If that motion fails, then basically we're not going to pursue any text amendments, and we would just move on. Oh, okay. So I can't make a motion, though, I don't think I'm supposed to, or even second it, so it would have to come from one of you three.

Right.

And it would be... Whatever language we're, you know, we've been talking about or have the staff draft something.

Correct staff to draft something based on what we have been discussing.

That's correct. So yeah, I like South Havens. I like the idea, the framework of it. And then maybe making a twist on the multifamily, you know, making that. for us in a multi-family dwelling building one plus one for each bedroom over two so they could have a two-bedroom condo one spot yes but if you have three bedrooms you'd have to have two right yeah Yeah, we really could just make a designation for multifamily dwellings. We could not even touch the single family detached.

I think that's a consensus. We had a consensus on that, right?

I agree.

Yep. Okay, then do we have a consensus of the possibility that for one or two rooms or bedrooms, that that could be one parking space on site? Is there a consensus on that or not?

of kind of near South Havens, so.

But what you just said, there's technically in South Haven, if you have a two bedroom condo, you need one spot. So we could do two bedrooms, two spots, one bedroom, one spot. Yeah, what do we wanna say?

Our other guidelines are based on occupancy.

That's what I'm saying, we should.

Oh yes, yes, yes, you're right.

We should base it on occupants. And I think when they go to look at these condos or look at anything, they look at a bedroom and they think two occupants. And we have two bedrooms, four occupants. Is that true or not?

It's based on square footage. But if you have a very large bedroom, the bedroom could technically have six occupants. Oh, yeah, because you could have bunk beds in a big room. Yeah, that's... I think it's one of the houses on...

Well, then it would be.

One of them has 15. Yeah, so they have an occupancy of 12, but I think they only have four bedrooms.

Well, 15. Jacobson, four. Sunside Parking, five. But it still comes back to occupants of how we are wording things, so.

Yeah, we we would want to put it in terms of number of occupants, right?

What would we like to? And it can always be edited at in the August meeting as well based on the feedback we receive from the public But we should decide on yeah what we want to know occupants tied to number parking spaces What we want people to respond

If I may, Madam Chair, so it sounds like we are in favor of altering our short-term rental parking requirements.

From all these families. I'm not on board with that. What? I'm not on board with that.

We just have to figure out what we want for the motion, then we'll make the motion. Okay. Yes. But we have to figure out how many occupants per one space we would be comfortable with.

Is it two, three, four?

Just a quick question. We currently require two spaces for a minimum of...

How many occupants? I thought up to six, is that, and then beyond six.

Can you pull that, the short-term run? I can pull it.

Well, I've got. A minimum of two off-street parking shall be provided per unit up to six occupants, plus one space for every three occupants over six based on approved occupants.

So it looks like we're doing three occupants per space. Yes.

Yeah.

So we could do three.

That'd be interesting.

That would kind of be following the rules.

It would be consistent.

Yes, we could do one for three. I'd push it to four.

Four? Well, so I'm a family of four, right? Oh, you're right. So we would typically rent a two-bedroom place.

Yeah, I mean, what am I vacationing with?

Two other people.

I'd be comfortable with four. That's just me. I understand people are comfortable with two. The language I would be comfortable with would be one spot in a multifamily dwelling for four occupants, and every person over that per three requires an additional spot.

Between four to six, you'd have two, and after six up to nine, beyond six, you'd have three.

Yes. Try that and see what people think. if the motion passes today to have staff draft that language and look into it.

We have to write the language down first.

I know. It's a lot. Okay.

One second. Okay. Any multifamily dwelling units? Type it down. Oh, that's even better. It takes a majority to pass.

Yeah, so it needs three.

Right. We're up two.

Multifamily zoned property?

Multifamily dwelling building. Dwelling unit?

It's not the zoning, it's the structure. Dwelling property. There is, what were they talking about, condos?

Well, they had it in... Well, the staff can, they know, the staff, you guys know what I mean, and you guys, whatever definition we need.

They had multifamily dwelling building.

And then we said... the second parking space required for the next how many occupants so four is one so five to five to six that makes sense greater than six will be for every three would be so it brings it back in line with what we have correct well you guys can make the language better this is not good okay So this is what I'll read it for draft. Make a motion to direct staff to make changes to the short-term rental ordinance to allow one parking space for up to four occupants of a multifamily dwelling building with a second parking space required for up to six occupants with three spots required for occupants greater than six. But then staff can make it sound better.

I can sort that out.

but the intent is there of what we're wanting.

We're probably not going to go out condos with nine plus one space for three occupants over six.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, this is my first, first round.

So six, we would follow the single family.

Yes. So that's the motion. I can't make it. If it sounds like Kelly's not on board, David and Megan, if you wanted to make this motion, you could say it. I'll be happy with what the team wants.

Isn't this Robert's Rule of Orders? The motion's got to come from the other three. Is that true?

Yes, that was mine. I'm not supposed to make the motion. I can just vote on it.

You can just vote on it.

I shouldn't even make a second either, I don't think.

Well, then, okay. My wife's dead set against it, so I'm not sure what to do.

Yeah, why isn't she here? What the heck? I haven't seen her in a while.

She can come to public comment. Okay, okay. So here we go. So can you hand me your computer, please? Okay. So I make a motion that we change the language along these lines and said to allow for the short-term rental ordinance to allow one parking space per up to four occupancy of a multi-family dwelling building with a second parking space required up to six occupants and with three parking spots required for occupancy greater than six.

An additional parking spot.

An additional parking beyond that. Yeah. Okay. So I make, that's the motion I'm making.

Okay. Okay. Do I hear a second?

Move. Okay. So Megan does a second. So do we have discussion? Yeah. Any further discussion? Okay.

Now the motion's off the table.

There will be a public hearing on this. Okay, and that would be next in August?

Yes. Yep. So in about a month. Okay. So we'll tell Darcy to come.

Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. I've got to be careful of that. It's all publicly.

I know. She's probably watching at home. If you have a comment, let's wait until we're done with the motion, and then we'll have you comment. Okay. Let's do a roll call vote, please.

Mooney? Aye. Yes. Dye?

Yes.

Parker?

No.

And Bechtel? Yes.

Okay. Motion passes for staff to work on this for the August meeting. Can I have my laptop back?

Oh, sure. Sorry. I was just going to walk off.

We're not done copying all your emails yet. Okay.

for clarification um madam chair and commissioners you would still like to keep the two parking space minimum for short uh single family homes that's yes whether they're detached or attached or detached okay yeah we don't want to touch anything about single family homes

Okay, let me just pull back up the agenda. Oh yes, right here would be great. So any new business that we have? Probably not. Statements of citizens. Come up and talk about the agenda items. That's fine. Oh wait, could you say your name and address? Thank you. No, that's fine.

We got it.

Yeah, and you can submit written comments as well. Yep, and then anyone can come. So if you want like family or friends to support this.

25th.

We do take, like if we receive written correspondence, I take it just as seriously as like someone being here. Thanks. Any comments from the planning commissioners tonight about anything else? Anything on the staff report?

Yes, we will go back. I work with a senior planner to Falker on making these edits. Not quite sure what format we'll have it in. If you guys would prefer a table like South Haven to make it clean or how you would want that to look.

I love a table.

I may ask Chair Bechtel for comment on that as we go into August. We are looking or working on Barrett still in revisions and I'm not quite sure if Village Manager Selner has talked to you all. We are getting phased out. Me and Cassie, from the contractual planning agreement we have here, over the next six months or so is the belief. So as they bring in a new planner, they will probably be here at the meetings overlapping with us. But the plan is to phase Cassie and myself out.

Okay.

That is the only updates.

Could I have a motion to adjourn? Great. All those in favor, say aye.