The South Haven City Council is crafting an ordinance to regulate short-term rental properties.
At a meeting this week, attorney Cliff Bloom said the draft language put together thus far would allow some STRs as commercial operations in residential areas, within limits. He said the city can’t do much to reduce existing short-term rentals, but it can limit new ones.
“I don’t think the courts will allow us to do that,” Bloom said. “I think the courts will allow us to add restrictions, including potentially more parking, maybe tighter occupancy and so on. But the idea of using the regulatory ordinance to really drop the numbers dramatically, I suspect the courts would not allow that.”
So, the ordinance seeks to limit growth of new STRs.
“I think probably one of the more contentious parts of that were the additional STR licenses that would be allowed for the business units, and one of the components of this proposed amendment would be to essentially remove those extra lottery driven ones for a cap,” Bloom said.
Bloom said there’s also a question of unregistered short-term rentals, or those operating illegally. The city would have to spend resources finding them.
The draft language allows STRs that existed as of December 31 of last year to continue and sets that number as a cap, barring the possibility fewer STRs exist when the new rule takes effect.
The language will be sent to the planning commission and then come back before the city council at a later date.
