Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Order at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, August 25th. Jordan, do you want to call the roll, please? Dye?

Here.

Frank?

Here.

Johnson? Here. Myers?

Here.

Mooney is absent. Parker? Here. And Chair Bechtel?

Here. All right. Could we please get an approval of tonight's agenda? I'll need a motion and a second. Motion to approve tonight's agenda as written.

Second that.

Awesome. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

And approval of the minutes is up next. We last met on July 28, 2026.

Motion to approve. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Casey, do we have any correspondence? None. Okay. At this time, we can do statements of citizens for agenda items only, but we also have a public hearing about the ordinance text amendments. So you also can speak at that time if you'd like. Okay, let's go to public hearings. We're looking at a text amendment to short-term rental parking standards. If you'd like to explain, Casey, thanks.

I can provide a brief background for you all. This started in June when Christopher Hendricks requested a text amendment. to allow short-term rentals with one parking space to receive approval up to four occupants. Currently, our ordinance requires a minimum of two spaces for up to six people. We had a meeting last month on July 28th, and during that meeting, staff provided the Planning Commission with a few different short-term rental ordinances from across neighboring and similar lakeshore communities. Following discussion, the Commission asked staff to draft language which would allow for lesser parking requirement for only multi-family units. The changes in this ordinance that I will scroll down to do not affect single-family homes. So down here, just a quick overview. This is our short-term rental ordinance, and I have redlined the proposed changes. We add this here that says the following shall apply to single-family dwelling units. maintaining that minimum of two off-street parking spaces. And in this red paragraph is the proposed changes to reflect the discussion for the past two months, stating a minimum of one space required for maximum four occupants, minimum of two spaces for up to six occupants, and then for every three occupants past six, we require additional space. So those are the brief changes, and that is it.

All right. And we need to open the public hearing? Yes. Okay. All right. Let's open the public hearing at 6.02 p.m. Do we want to start with comments from citizens or from the Planning Commission? Citizens. Okay. I welcome comments for this public hearing. I KNOW, I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN SO LONG. GOOD EVENING.

I WAS GIVING MY HUSBAND PLANNING COMMISSIONER A LITTLE SPACE. OH, OKAY. I'M DARCY. I'VE SPENT LONG HOURS THINKING THROUGH THESE CHANGES TO THE ORDINANCE. WHEN WE HAD A SHORT-TERM MORATORIUM ON SHORT-TERM RENTALS IN THE VILLAGE, OUR PLANNER SPENT COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF TIME WORKING THROUGH DETAILS THAT WOULD ELIMINATE SOME OF THOSE PROBLEMS WITH EXCESS PARKING, ESPECIALLY DURING WEEKENDS FOR SHORT-TERM RENTALS. AND I'M WONDERING, AS WE POTENTIALLY CHANGE THIS ORDINANCE RIGHT NOW FOR A SINGLE CONDO OWNER, THAT WE NEED TO SPEND SOME MORE TIME THINKING ABOUT THE LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES OF THIS ORDINANCE CHANGE. RIGHT NOW AT LAKE POINT CONDOS BECAUSE THERE'S NOBODY IN THE OLD BOYS, DR. RALL'S BUILDING, THERE'S PLENTY OF OVERFLOW PARKING. BUT WHAT HAPPENS THE DAY THAT PROPERTY GETS DEVELOPED OR RERENTED TO SOMEBODY WHO NEEDS ALL THOSE SPACES? And then there are properties in our overlay district like Epicurean Village where lawyers for the past year have wrangled over dedicated spaces for condo owners in that condo facility. And there are places like Marina Bay where parking is definitely limited. SO THAT WHEN WE OPEN THOSE AREAS UP FOR SHORT-TERM RENTALS AND DECREASE THE AMOUNT OF PARKING NEEDED, I THINK WE MAY BE OPENING UP THE SITUATION THAT WE HAD, ESPECIALLY IN THE MONARCH DIXIE AREA WITH EXCESS PARKING, ESPECIALLY DURING WEEKENDS. And then simply a rhetorical question, who then patrols those condo associations? Is it the association's job to deal with that parking issue? Is it the village's job to patrol that? And it may behoove us to slow down the decision on this and spend time actually talking with condo associations to see what the impact of an ordinance like this would be on the individual associations. Thank you.

Would anyone else like to speak? OK. Let's start some discussion. But I think we have a new face. I just want to do a quick introduction. Hello. I'm Leah. You're a new planning commission member. What was your first name?

Bill.

Bill. Nice to meet you. Thanks. So have we thought about this? I know we didn't have everyone here last time. We didn't have Bill.

Jen, were you here?

Megan was here. Kelly was here. David. Yeah. Right, you had an email that we talked about. Yes. So we had just enough people here last time. We chatted about it. We said, let's think, have some texts come forward. Doesn't mean we have to say yes or no, but we'll talk about it at this meeting. So open for discussion from any of the commission members.

I will say that I don't love the multiple family dwelling only because you do have, like over in the Monarch Rex Dixie, you do have some... Which, unfortunately, I don't feel like that should. You know what I mean? We were talking about large condo associations, and again, I don't know that you can separate those as far as saying, okay, well, this guy is a yes, this little two duplex is a no. You know what I mean? I think I'm still struggling with, I'll be honest with you, the big overlay. I don't know that I love the idea of just a blanket, one size fits all, especially after the work of, I'm assuming, most of our predecessors, although you may, well, no, maybe Kelly was here when this happened. Sorry. Okay. But, you know, I mean, there was a lot of work done to create this, and I just don't know that blanketing with a statement like this is, especially when, like I said, we're pulling back in properties that I don't know that we were wanting to pull back in of those, you know, small duplexes.

What do you mean pull back in?

Well, because, like, essentially, the way this was written before, they would have needed more parking, like at Rex and Dixie, to have that. Now we're saying any multifamily dwelling unit, that would be a duplex stationed there, would now technically fall under this one. If it's in the overlay of short-term rentals.

Are Rex and Dixie still in the overlay?

We removed them.

I think we removed those three. Still a valid comment that this does... Does do duplexes?

Yeah, we're not saying, you know, a 12-plex apartment.

Right.

You know, condo community, we're saying multi-family dwellings. Well, there are potentials to have things that don't really fit into that.

Do you think it's starting to blur the edges?

Yeah. To the point of enforcement, I know that they have to re-up their like licensure, their permit every year, but if they are using multiple parking spaces or using non-public parking spaces at overflow, what does that enforcement look like? Is that on the property owner?

I don't know what they were doing previously in the village to patrol parking or short-term rentals period, but I do know you all have hired a enforcement officer for the village that is new as of I think less than a month ago. So that would kind of be his thing to patrol now.

Okay. I have a question about if a property does have the short-term rental permit, does that disallow it from long-term rental? I know we had a case where somebody discontinued their short-term rental because they wanted to do long-term rental, and then they had to come back and get it reinstated.

Right. Yeah, if you have the long-term, you can't do short-term, but if you have the short-term, you can do short-term or long-term. Okay.

But you have to clarify it, though?

If they register as a long-term, they'd not be considered short-term anymore. But if they register as short-term, they can do it short-term or long-term. But they would have to register it as a short-term.

But they can't let that registration lapse, right? That was the specific issue that we talked about two months ago.

And that's annually?

Yep, every year.

Okay.

If I may, and I'm the newbie trying to play catch up, looking at this in some of the neighboring communities, I noticed a lot of them were based on occupancy rather than bedrooms. And I'm just wondering why we chose to go bedrooms over occupancy. We have occupancy. Oh, I'm sorry, just the opposite. We have occupancy. Yeah.

That was the precedence set, or not the precedence, that was the ordinance that was already created by their predecessors, so I think they just wanted to stay with occupancy for the changes. We didn't really discuss opening up to bedrooms, but that is a good point. If you all wanted to discuss changing that from occupancy to bedrooms, that is a possibility as well.

Okay. There's a study made of each one when they apply for a short-term rental, and it's determined how many occupants can be in that particular unit. and that maybe one large maybe could take three occupants, but was it the planner goes there, looks at it, makes the decision?

Based on square footage, the calculations. So if you have a gigantic bedroom, you can fit five people in there, as opposed to if it's smaller, it's two. So it's all based on square footage.

Okay. Is that based off of, like, building code? What is that founded in?

I'm not quite sure how Cassie was finding it. I believe it's a state rule, but it's not done in the village. It's done on a grander scale. Got it.

Okay. So depending on the size, number of bedrooms and the size of the bedrooms will determine the number of occupants that that particular short-term rental can have? Correct. Okay.

Anyone else?

Oh, I'll go. I'm still not persuaded that this is a change that is needed, that serves the market, any kind of market demand that I'm hearing. And I'm hearing opposition to it for various ways. And I had not thought about the possibility of, say, duplexes or triplexes elsewhere in the village. I was just thinking in terms of large apartment complexes. I would hate to accidentally allow, you know, a bunch of short-term rentals in place where we don't want them.

I would be in support of it. We're not expanding the area. We're just allowing more. for rentals that are already in the overlay area, and maybe it would be a one-bedroom apartment that only does need one parking space. Currently, I don't think anyone in the Epicurean Village could rent out as an Airbnb, even though they're in the overlay district, and we intentionally set that as an overlay district, but they can't.

Are they in the short-term rental district, Epicurean Village? Yeah.

Yeah, so all those types of buildings, you have to have two dedicated spots. Oh. So basically they can't.

But with those, though, too, it really doesn't matter.

Correct.

Even if we say yes and they say yeah.

Yeah. And that's fine. We don't need to, and that's great. Like, that's up to them, you know, on their condo, whatever. But the other towns we looked at, like the beach towns, a lot of them did only allow one, they only needed one spot. So I'm... Confident and what the other towns have done that I would allow just one spot I don't like to make rules based on parking and It was more opportunity for smaller groups I You have to make a decision tonight, or what would you like?

Yes, so there are three sample motions here. You would need to recommend approval to the village council, recommend denial of the proposed tax amendment so that the council can make the ultimate decision, or you can create revisions.

Okay.

I don't know, I guess, like I said, my feeling on it, blanketing it, I don't love. So, I mean, my recommendation at this point would be to deny it. If there's something we look at on a case-by-case basis as we did with the gentleman a while back where he purchased the parking space, then I guess I don't have an issue with that. But I just don't like the idea of it overall being a blanket statement.

Was there a motion?

Anyone can make a motion for any way they want.

They would still need to come to us for the special land use, right? So like just saying that for a multi-dwelling doesn't automatically mean that they get it, except for if they satisfy all of the requirements, which Have we ever seen a property that satisfies, like is a conforming property in Spring Lake?

There's quite a few that are permitted already, correct? I mean, they don't come through us.

Or tournamentals, or?

Yeah, they go to Lucas, correct? Doesn't he? No, we go through, we see every single one. But I guess then at the same point, I don't, yeah, I see what you're saying. If they, if they meet, we can't just say no because we don't want it there.

Yeah, yeah, we can't, we can't.

You have to have an actual reason. Right. It has to not perform in some way.

As the process works now, they would submit an application, staff would review it, and if they don't have the parking space requirement, it's immediate no, doesn't even come to you all. So I don't know if we've had any, would that happen before, but if it wasn't conforming, you guys would not see that.

Then how did we see the condo guy that we said no to?

when he first arrived.

Mr. Hendricks, he had only one spot, and it did come before us. In January. Yeah. It did come before us.

Yeah, we do.

That may be a Harrison question. I was not present when Harrison did that, but I know that I received an application, and... If it was not conforming, it would not have come before you all. I'm not quite sure if there's flexibility in the ordinance as of now to allow for that, but that's how it appears currently.

That was the first one that we've seen that was non-conforming parking space-wise, but building setback and all of those, everyone that we've seen has been non-conforming. That's just the nature of where we live.

Although the setbacks are not going to be an issue for any of the condos or apartments, right?

Right. Right.

Yeah.

So as far as they're concerned, the only way for them not to conform would be a parking requirement. That's all I can think of. So to that point, if they are fully conforming, would we see it at all or would it just go through?

Yeah, it's a special land use.

Okay. So they still have to come? Correct. Got it. Mm-hmm.

But then again, if, like you said, if it is fully conforming, that's the hardest part. Yeah, we can't just say, yeah, we can't just be like, yeah, we don't like your shirt today, so no. I mean, yeah, we can't.

But if we change it to one, they would be fully conforming. Is that true?

Potentially.

I think what I'm struggling with is, in general, I'm in support of this. I recognize the duplex. I recognize the potential enforcement issues. I know that a lot of the properties that we're talking about have certain bylaws. We had that two hour long meeting how long ago about the bylaws of the property that started all of this. And I'm not sure, like, planning commission doesn't have jurisdiction over enforcement, right? But that also doesn't mean that we can't take it into account a little bit. I'm struggling on how much, like, that's up to us versus up to the, like, property owners and our new enforcement officer. If that makes sense.

I mean, so, like, if a complaint comes in to Brady, is that what you mean? Like, if they call the village and say, hey, we're... Like, I don't know if this person is going to drive. I mean, well, I shouldn't say that. I know for a fact this person's not going to drive to every short-term rental and check. Right. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, like that's, I think this person works 12 hours, 13 hours a week. Right. Yeah. Yeah, so I guess I see what, yeah. I mean, everything I think if they call into the village to do a complaint, it would go to that person.

The person the village hires to cover these?

But how does that work, Jordan, when they go to apply the next time? Is it looked upon, like how many complaints were against them this year or anything?

Registration-wise, we haven't really had many complaints typically with our short-term renters. When we did, they were the Rexmont or Dixie neighborhood. And then they get sent enforcement letters. After so many enforcement letters, they can have their certificate revoked for a period of time. If that is recurrent, they lose their certificate altogether and they can't get it back.

Enforcement is tricky because the violations, and that's gonna be over parking, a bunch of cars come in, or noise violations, those tend to happen late at night on a weekend. And they get reported if a neighbor picks up the phone and calls the sheriff and says, hey, my neighbors are getting out of hand. And then Village Hall does hear that from Ottawa County Sheriff. but I don't know how willing people are to actually make a complaint.

Am I correct in assuming someone can apply for an individual exception? Did someone say that? THIS TO THE CURRENT ORDINANCE? THAT THEY ONLY HAVE ONE OR THEY PAID FOR ONE AND THAT WOULD BE AN EXCEPTION TO THE ORDINANCE?

ARE YOU REFERRING TO, I BELIEVE THERE WAS A PREVIOUS APPLICANT WHO CAME IN, ONLY HAD ONE SPACE BUT TALKED ABOUT PURCHASING ANOTHER SPACE. I WAS NOT HERE WHEN THAT HAPPENED. IF ANYBODY REMEMBERS HOW THAT PLAYED OUT?

from what I recall, he was not able to get that extra space. So he was attempting to apply for special land use under the understanding that he did not have the spaces. And then when he denied that, he had come back to us with the suggestion to change the ordinance. So I don't know The verbiage of applying for an individual like it's we don't grant variances or anything like along those lines It's a special in you so we just say yes or no, but I mean almost every short-term rental we've approved we've had to Recognize it's non-conformity

Most of the homes here don't meet setbacks or whatever types of rules because it's such an old town, you know. Homes were built two feet from the property line. So we could have said no to all of those, and we would be completely within our right to do so. But we've granted them recognizing the nonconformity. With the parking, though, we were just like, no, because it's not following the rules, and it was more clear-cut, I guess, would be why we said no to it. Whereas a setback, it's like, eh.

We gave them some liberty. The parking, I think, was a problem. I feel like your neighbor's house sits a certain amount of feet away from yours, and if we say no to the short-term rental, it doesn't make the house move. Short-term rental, it can keep from having four cars parked in front of it. I think that was sort of the difference of it. Like you said, the house isn't going to move wherever it's from, whether it's a short-term rental or someone's living there. So I think that's kind of a moot point that we just have to.

Do we think we're gonna open up a Pandora's box and we say a single family? Well, if it's a multiple family dwelling unit, and it could be any of the multiple family dwelling units. And we say that they can do it with one parking space because most of these units come with one parking space. Are we going to be opening it up to many more having short-term rentals because of that?

We could ask because many of these rentals have one dedicated parking space that we're grandfathered in. We could ask. 110, 113, 114, 117, 108, and 104 mill point if they've had any issues, I guess.

Yeah, it's funny. What's the difference?

They have one on-site, like 109, 110 mill point has one dedicated on-site parking space. They technically can have six people at their Airbnb.

Those are all the grandfathered-in ones, so we can.

Ah.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. But yes, if they fell off the list, like didn't rent for a year, and they applied again... Nope, we would say no. Yeah, so... Oh, I asked for this last time.

Ah, okay.

I was like, show me all the rentals. We only have like... Are some of these businesses? They're just LLCs, like who owns it?

Yeah.

We only have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten... We have 18 properties that are short-term rentals, but of those, two of the properties are condos and have multiple in there. So it's a super small percentage of homes. Yeah, a lot of them are non-conforming because they came in before they were approved. But yeah, that's a good point, David. You don't know what you're doing. You just can't predict the future of what you do. Right.

Open it up, but I Guess out outside of the like Rex Dixie monarch that we've already taken away How many I know you can't tell me this off the top of your head but Can we get a number of? Duplexes that are in this special land use that that would be affected by this in the overlay Yeah, do you keep track of the duplexes Jordan if they're not renting?

I don't okay manually right

Well, I'm thinking, you know, I'm really reluctant to make this change because it could open up a can of worms where people say, oh, wow, I've got this big house. Let me split it up now into two or three apartments. Now I'm multiple family.

Yeah, any of them on the list, potentially.

discussion we can make a motion to accept it reject it or revise it I don't think we can make a motion to table it if we have even if we have questions for staff yeah you can table that is an option if you have public hearing you can proceed to table it that is an option okay so there's many things we can do I just can't make a motion or second it so it's gonna have to come from someone else what we're thinking.

I was looking forward to the public hearing because I have my view and I wanted to see, you know, is there a lot of countervailing opinion? We had one speaker. I don't know how much more information we plan to get.

I don't know if there's anything left to get, really, that would...

Right. Well, and to that point, we've had that one person speak in support of this, and it's somebody who's trying to get their unit available for rent. There hasn't been any public support for, and there hasn't been a ton of public support against other than what we heard today.

Well, there was a head of that particular condominium association that was against it.

That was more, it seemed like more condo politics rather than.

Yeah.

And I think we got a letter from a condo neighbor. We did.

Yeah, that one's hard for me to take their opinion when they're short-term rental owners themselves, many of those people, because they were grandfathered in. So it's hard to take their opinion. without a grain of salt that they are renting their own units right now right because they got grandmothered in so they just beat the rules you know yeah i agree i want to hear more feedback

Well, I will move that we recommend the Spring Lake Village Council deny the proposed zoning ordinance text amendment modifying the parking requirements for short-term rentals.

Second. Any further discussion? OK. Let's do a roll call vote, please.

Johnson? Yes. Guy?

Yes.

Frank?

No.

Parker?

Yes.

Myers?

Yes.

And Chair Bechtol? No.

Motion to deny passes. Was it four to six? No, four to two.

Four to two.

Go forward to council at their next Village Council meeting and they can I believe choose to overturn this to a yay So that is also option or they can follow the Planning Commission recommendation to deny it Anything left to talk about for this one for old business, nope, okay any new business None.

Okay, and any statements of citizens for non agenda items you can speak now. I I can speak now if you'd like, but if you do, we'd like you to be at the podium if possible so we can hear you okay.

I'm Craig. I live at 319. for the department.

Okay. Property owner?

Is this for short-term rental you're speaking of?

Are you talking about for a short-term rental?

Anybody, short-term, long-term. Who provides property for these people? Property owner?

Well, there's a difference between if it would be long-term or short-term and how many spaces.

Is it long-term then?

I don't know anything about long-term standards. It's short-term then.

Parking should be on site. Say again? Parking should be on site on the property.

Is the property owner's responsibility to provide the parking spaces? That's my question.

Yes.

Yes.

Any other statements? Okay, any comments from Planning Commissioners? Okay, anything from staff? Nothing. All right. Can I get a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn.

Second.

All right. All those in favor?