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www.newbuffalotimes.com
THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2021
Grand Beach Village Council discusses Ellen Frankle resignation, short-term rental regulations
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BY FRANCESCA SAGALA
embers of the Grand the ordinance technically doesn’t allow Beach Village Council short-term rentals, it may not be known heard of the resignation if they’re operating in the village unless of Ellen Frankle, who there are complaints. was just elected to the Senica said the village could make council in April, at their Wednesday, short-term rentals a special use in June 16, meeting. residential neighborhoods, so there’d Frankle was elected by the council have to be a manager on duty 24/7 to fill the seat left empty by former who could be called if there would be councilmember Steve Slater. a problem. She said that really good Councilmembers voted 1-3 on short-term rental managers have Frankle’s resignation, with Blake “excellent contracts,” where people have O’Halloran voting “yes.” to sign where they’re liable, they have Council president Deborah Lindley to put huge deposits down if there’s expressed regret over Frankle’s any damage - there’s a “lot of steps resignation. really good managers go She said her “high through to make sure Village Attorney moral standards” and these properties don’t Sara Senica said “knowledge of the village” raise alarms and people that the village made her an “outstanding don’t have to call the technically doesn’t candidate.” police.” allow short-term Lindley said that the “If we did allow shortrentals, as the council will have a new term rentals through a zoning ordinance candidate, who will be special use process, we’d states single appointed to a term be able to monitor that family dwellings ending November 2022, at and be able to put those are an allowed use the July meeting. safeguards in place,” or double family Councilmembers Senica said. dwellings or twodiscussed short-term Senica added that the family dwellings, rentals in the village. village would also “be like a duplex - not Village Attorney Sara justified” in considering “different families Senica said that the village how many short-term in and out every technically doesn’t allow rentals it wants in the week or every short-term rentals, as the village and if it wants 20 10 days.” zoning ordinance states percent of the village to single family dwellings be rentals – something are an allowed use or double family that would give the village a “very dwellings or two-family dwellings, like different character.” a duplex - not “different families in and Last meeting, councilmembers out every week or every 10 days.” approved a resolution opposing “The primary use has to be a Michigan House Bill 4722 and Senate family, or two families in the case of a Bill 446 (which were pending in the duplex, living together in a permanent Michigan Legislature as of June 16). relationship upon the property,” she The two bills state that short-term said. rentals aren’t commercial but are a Senica said the village doesn’t residential use. Per the bills, Senica currently have the enforcement said that “every home in the state can mechanisms to have police officers be used as a rental,” and the village driving around looking at driveways to wouldn’t be allowed to put any rules or see whose car is at a house or if there regulations in place if they were to pass. are there are different cars there. While This would mean the village wouldn’t
be able to require a manager or to do special inspections on the short-term rentals. The only remedy mentioned in the bills if there’s a problem with a shortterm rental is to call the police. Senica added that the bills are “really a disaster” for people who want to do rentals the “right way.” The bills state that one can’t do any regulations on a short-term rental unless everyone is regulated. The council would have to pass an ordinance requiring every home in the village to have a twenty-four seven manager on call if anything goes wrong, she said. “You as a local council and local citizens getting together and having meetings and talking about this can solves these issues 100 times better than the state when they’re comparing you to Detroit and Flint – we have very different needs,” she said. Councilmember James Bracewell said that the village has a special land use resolution in place. The village has been “accumulating complaints” on certain addresses and is getting closer to having an SLU hearing. Councilmember Blake O’Halloran said that “everything that could for a rental, is the same thing that could happen for a summer resident,” such as big parties. “I don’t care if it’s a summer resident, a full-time resident or a rental…You’re going to call the police and tell them, you’re breaking the noise ordinance that’s what we have always done and that’s what we will always continue to do,” he said. O’Halloran said that state Rep. Brad Paquette (R-Niles), one of the sponsors on the House bill, has introduced a substitute that would “fundamentally change the bill to give local governments more power over short-term rentals.” Reading from a letter from Paquette, he said he would “prevent municipal governments from banning rentals through zoning and provide a definition of short-term rentals but it would allow them to do anything
and everything else, so municipal governments would have total control of regulations, but they wouldn’t be able to tell someone they can’t rent.” “Anyone who wants to rent (in Grand Beach) can rent and they do… State government’s not trying to take over, what they’re trying to do is get it right and that is to keep the rights of residents to be able to rent if they want to,” he said. Senica said that, as of June 16, no changes have been submitted yet to either bill, adding that Paquette’s name is still listed as a sponsor of the original House bill. Councilmember Paul Leonard said that the issue with short-term rentals is “a local issue and it should be dealt with by the local authorities.” “As a matter of principle, never will I agree to the state of Michigan taking authority away from the local council to regulate,” he said. Senica said the village could do an ordinance fashioned after what New Buffalo has done as well as Michiana; however, she cautioned that, if either of the pending bills were to pass, they would “override” whatever they’d put into creating one.
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enica said that she thinks the council and Planning Commission should begin working on if they “want to push all the people who want to rent into a special use permit or do we want to have an ordinance that regulates across the board with rentals, where every rental will have to follow that procedure” such as registering with the village. “If you’re doing it right and you have a property management company, you’re probably following all the rules we put in place already...but it would bring those who are causing trouble into that same fold with people who are doing it right,” she said.
GRAND BEACH cont’d on page 7
