BIG RAPIDS — Big Rapids city commissioners, this week, adopted a resolution in opposition of legislation in the Michigan House and Senate proposing changes to short-term lease zoning laws.
“There have been a couple of bills proposed — HB 4377 has been passed and SB 466 in in the process,” Big Rapids-based attorney Eric Williams told the board. “The Michigan Municipal League and the Michigan Township Association have been opposing them and are asking municipalities across the state to voice their opposition to the state legislators. This resolution does that.”
Williams said the key part of the bills is where they state, “for the purposes of zoning … the rental of a dwelling including and not limited to short term rentals … is a permitted use in all residential zones.”
“It goes on to say that municipalities cannot regulate them (short term rentals) by zoning,” he said. “It is alarming that the state legislature is telling every city and township in the state that if your citizens say they don’t want short term rentals and they want them prohibited in certain areas by zoning, it can’t be done. That is what this legislation does.
“The state legislature shouldn’t be telling us that,” he added. “That is the purpose of the resolution.”
Paula Priebe, the city's community development director, said she was strongly opposed to the legislation being proposed, as is the Michigan Planning Association, who vocally opposed the legislation.
“The legislation states that short-term rentals would have to be treated the same as any other property within a zoning district,” she said. “In Big Rapids, we treat short-term rentals the same as long-term rentals, which means they have to enroll in our inspection program. This (legislation) would not allow us to inspect them unless we also inspected every owner-occupied home."
“It is a very odd piece of legislation, and I would encourage you to pass the resolution and discourage the legislature from passing it,” she added.
The resolution states, “whereas the city receives a substantial number of visitors because of Ferris State University and other local attractions, and there are neighborhoods in which short term rentals can be in conflict with owner-occupied residential properties, the Big Rapids city commission believes that each unit of local government is in the best position to know and understand the regulatory needs of its citizens.”
It further states SB 446 and HB 4722 will “eliminate the authority of local governmental units to regulate short term rentals through zoning ordinances,” therefore, the city commission “is in opposition to SB 446 and HB 4722, and requests that Michigan legislators vote against the bills and preserve the zoning authority of local units of government over short term rentals of residential properties.”
Long term lease of public property
In other business, the board continued discussion on the adoption of an ordinance allowing the city to lease city-owned property for use by private organizations for the purpose of providing a public service.
The city was approached by the Friends of the White Pine Trail and the Pere Marquette Snowmobilers Club requesting the use of city-owned property for the purpose of constructing a facility, in which they can store their equipment used for maintaining and grooming the White Pine Trail.
The two organizations are contracted with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to provide grooming services along the state park to enhance and make the White Pine Trail available for bikers, hikers and snowmobilers throughout the year. The city currently has no ordinance in place to allow for the lease of public land to a private entity.
“City staff has been looking at ways to perhaps lease city owned land to organizations that would be performing some kind of service to enhance, develop or maintain public recreational facilities,” Williams said. “The snowmobile club, which has a contract with the DNR to groom the White Pine Trail, has a mission to do this work and would like to lease land from the city for a low rate because they are providing a service according to guidelines from the state. It looks like a win-win proposition, but the question is, ‘Can the city do it legally?’
“I have provided potential ordinance language just to look at and give some feedback,” he continued. “I drew from the state laws that allow the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to do this. This is how I think we can go about doing this.”
Williams said the DNR is authorized to provide and develop facilities for outdoor recreation and one of the ways they do that is to grant leases on state land to organizations that provide or develop facilities for outdoor recreation.
“Municipalities can do this as well,” he said. “Cities have enough authority to develop their own policies for use of public lands within those state guidelines.”
Williams said in the ordinance proposal it states, “with or without a public bid or request for proposal,” and suggested that may be a “flash point” for them to consider.
“That is in there because it doesn’t always seem worthwhile to go through the public bid process if you have some unique situation for which there isn’t any other person or entity that is likely to do it,” Williams said. “However, the sanitizing effect of the public bid or public proposal request puts the light of day on everything. You get that display to the public of what you are doing.
“Generally, I am an advocate for doing that, but in this instance, I am not sure it always works,” he continued. “I put ‘with or without the public bid process' so the planning commission or the city commission could say on any particular transaction that they are not going to go with the public bid or proposal.”
Included in the language is the statement the planning commission, and the parks and recreation board have to review any request.
“This is there so that by the time the city commission gets it (the request), you would know that the planning commission and the parks and rec. board have looked at it and made a recommendation,” Williams said. “You would get the benefit of both boards review. That’s a lot of review, but I think it is worth the safeguard.”
Mayor Fred Guenther said they need to think beyond just this one request because it could become more complicated with other types of requests.
“To me, what is important isn’t necessarily this particular usage — this one makes sense,” Guenther said. “What if somebody wants to lease the land we have next to the Depot to put up a business? This is setting precedent, and the next group may want a hunk of land to do something else.”
Gifford said with the Hemlock Park development, the city could see other business that may want to establish themselves in the area, such as food vendors or a tubing business.
Williams said it's something they need to take into consideration when crafting the ordinance.
“I you have something like a food vendor or a wine bar, that only gets there by a competitive bid or permitting process,” he said. “The city says if they want to allow certain businesses in certain areas. Staff has said there may be some ways this could expand, and we need to figure out how this will work in the city.”
“It seems that, if what we think is going come to pass comes to pass, that we will begin to see increased use of the trails as the White Pine Trail is finished and the Dragon Trail traffic starts coming into town,” commissioner Jennifer Cochran said. “It makes sense to me, at this juncture, to be looking at this and working out the kinks in terms of the likely increase in use that we are hoping to see, this would be a very timely thing to do.”
Williams said city staff would continue to work on the ordinance with the direction of the board and would give the ordinance proposal to both the planning commission and the parks and recreation board for review and further input.
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Big Rapids officials oppose short-term lease legislation - The Pioneer
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