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PARK TOWNSHIP, Mich. 鈥� The plot surrounding short-term rental restrictions in聽Park聽Township聽has thickened after a group of roughly 70 homeowners filed a federal lawsuit on Jan. 13.

The lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan (Southern Division) to declare that the municipality鈥檚 zoning ordinance was unconstitutionally vague from at least 2003 to 2024, and that the plaintiffs鈥� due process rights have been violated by recent enforcement actions.

The lawsuit also seeks to award monetary damages and attorney鈥檚 fees 鈥渢o the fullest extent of the law.鈥�

The filing doesn鈥檛 seek to overturn the municipality鈥檚 ban on short-term rentals; rather, it seeks to ensure rentals in place before the municipality voted in favor of enforcement be allowed to continue operating retroactively.

The problem centers on the interpretation of new zoning ordinances passed in 1974.

Until now, property owners have argued that all rentals in operation before officials voted in favor of enforcement in late 2022 should be granted grandfather status 鈥� in part because many of them were specifically told by municipal staffers that short-term rentals weren鈥檛 regulated in聽Park聽Township, and based their decisions on those assurances.

The聽Park聽Township聽Zoning Board of Appeals, however, found only rentals in place before 1974 could qualify for such consideration, because the ordinance didn鈥檛 expressly allow short-term rentals as a permitted use.

Judge Jon Hulsing of Ottawa County鈥檚 20th Circuit Court was inclined to agree, saying false statements from staffers who didn鈥檛 understand the ordinance doesn鈥檛 legally bind Park Township.

The federal lawsuit, however, focuses on operations that began in or after 2003, the same year the municipality鈥檚 zoning administrator allegedly testified聽Park聽Township聽had amended a zoning ordinance specifically to ensure short-term rentals could operate in residential districts.

The municipality has 21 days to respond to the filing.

So, when did聽Park聽Township聽crack down on short-term rentals? Officials didn’t choose to enforce a ban on short-term rentals in residential districts until 2022 鈥� and, admittedly, weren鈥檛 aware of the ban themselves until a legal opinion was issued in 2021.

In the opinion, the municipality鈥檚 attorney advised officials that short-term rentals were illegal by default because they weren鈥檛 expressly listed as authorized. The finding came after many single-family homes were snapped up for cash during the housing boom that followed the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Park聽Township, in response, agreed to research and potentially develop a new ordinance that would allow for the licensing and proper regulation of rentals, rather than shutting down existing ones.

Commissioners drafted an ordinance, hinged on a short-term rental cap and lottery system. But during a joint meeting in October 2022, consensus between commissioners and trustees seemed to veer toward elimination.

Trustees voted in November 2022 to lift an ongoing moratorium on enforcement and require all short-term rentals operating in residential zones to cease by October 2023.

Park Township now has a full-time code enforcer to review complaints and investigate properties that appear to have uses inconsistent with the ordinance.

Editor鈥檚 note: This article first appeared in The Holland Sentinel and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.