Park Township short-term rental owners plan to appeal after lawsuit loss

Park Township property owners have lost a lawsuit in Ottawa Circuit Court over the township’s ban on short-term rentals. But they plan to appeal and possibly file a federal lawsuit, according to Jeremy Allen, president of the nonprofit Park Township Neighbors.

The judge ruled that emailed statements from zoning administrators aren’t legally binding.

“Zoning administrators and Township employees do not have the authority to enact or modify ordinances, only the Township Board may enact ordinances and the ZBA has final administrative interpretation of zoning ordinances,” Judge Jon H. Hulsing concluded. “The ZBA did not err.”

Kyle Konwinski, lawyer for Park Township Neighbors, told Michigan Capitol Confidential in a telephone interview that the court’s opinion drew an incorrect inference from arguments about the legal definition of the word “motel.”

“The judge presented a hypothetical version of the motel definition drawn from one sentence of the 1974 ordinance,” said Konwinski.

Judge Hulsing described a motel as any building providing lodging for compensation on a transient basis. In court he asked Konwinski whether that description would include a short-term rental.

Konwinski agreed that, based on that sentence alone, it would.

The judge later cited this exchange as the Park Township Neighbor’s lawyer admission that short-term rentals were classified as motels under the 1974 ordinance.

Court Ruling by mcclallen

Konwinski disputed that interpretation. He said the judge’s hypothetical omitted a sentence that describes motels as buildings “designed for or occupied by automobile travelers.”

Konwinski told CapCon that the township has never interpreted the 1974 ordinance to include short-term rentals. He argued in court that the historical record showed township officials believed only one or two motels existed in 1974, even though vacation rentals were common at the time. The ordinance, he said, did not classify short-term rentals as motels when it was written.

The judge, however, concluded that the 1974 ordinance banned short-term rentals because they fit the definition of a motel.

Konminski said numerous township officials stated on the record as far back as 2018 that there is no regulation of short-term rentals and that they are not unlawful.

“We do not currently regulate rentals, either long term or short term” said Ed DeVries, zoning administrator, in a July 2018 email. “If it were a zoning ordinance change, it would be grandfathered.”

DeVries also wrote that even if the township board changed the zoning ordinance, existing short-term rentals would continue to operate. No new rentals would be allowed in residential areas, however.

“Park Township does not have short term rental regulations,” said Emily Posillico, another zoning administrator for Park Township wrote in an email to township manager Howard Fink in March 2020.

Fink himself reiterated that there was no regulation in April 2020.

“We have no regulations on short-term rentals and there has been no policy to regulate it from the board,” the township manager stated in an April 2020 email.

The board amend the zoning ordinance in March 2024 to prohibit rentals. But homeowners who brought the lawsuit say that short-term rental housing that existed before the amendment should be grandfathered.

Konwinski intends to appeal the case to the Michigan Court of Appeals. A federal lawsuit, he said, could be filed on the grounds that the 51-old ordinance is unconstitutionally vague, contrary to the U.S. Constitution’s due process clause.

The township did not respond to a request for comment.