Planning commission moves short‑term rental draft toward public hearing, asks staff for licensing data
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Summary
Traverse City planners reviewed a draft zoning amendment that would lower vacation‑home rental caps in several districts and asked staff and the clerk’s office to compile licensing and nonconforming‑use data ahead of a likely public hearing on April 15.
The Traverse City Planning Commission continued its multimonth discussion of short‑term rental rules on March 18, agreed to move the draft zoning changes toward a public hearing and requested several data sets from staff and the clerk’s office before public notice.
Planning Director Brian Winter presented a draft ordinance that reduces permitted shares of vacation home rentals in several zoning districts (the draft in the packet included examples such as 25% for C4C versus 50% for C4A and C4B, a negotiated 35% for certain community center districts and an unchanged 100% in the HR district). Winter said the planning commission narrowed its focus to vacation home rentals (whole‑unit rentals) as defined in the ordinance and that the commission’s prior direction had been to reduce allowable percentages in most districts.
Commissioner Anderson asked staff to collect detailed licensing data from the clerk’s office, including how many new short‑term rental licenses are issued annually, how many renew, how many lapse and the average years of activity before a license lapses. She also asked whether currently active licenses transfer automatically with property ownership; staff said transferability is handled by the clerk’s office and appears to require reapplication in some circumstances. Commissioner McGillivray requested a count of existing nonconforming uses in C1 and C2 and an estimate of how many nonconforming uses the proposed changes would create in each district.
Winter and staff said they would consult the city attorney and the clerk’s office to compile the requested data and to confirm details of the city’s vacation home rental administrative policy (the packet included a policy amended April 5, 2021). Staff anticipated scheduling a public hearing on the draft ordinance for April 15 but noted that the commission could delay action after the public hearing to allow more review. Winter cautioned that if the planning commission diverges substantially from the version noticed for public hearing, staff would likely advise holding an additional public hearing.
Commissioners emphasized that the draft percentages were intended to preserve a primarily long‑term housing character in many districts (several commissioners noted they did not want more than 50% of units in a building or district to be short‑term rentals). Commissioners and staff discussed zoning district names and mapping (for example, D1 vs. C4A distinctions) and the practical difficulty of identifying which units in a large building qualify as the grandfathered or permitted units under a reduced cap.
No formal recommendation was made on the draft ordinance at the meeting; the commission asked staff to provide the requested data and legal clarifications ahead of the anticipated public hearing so commissioners and the public can review those materials in advance.