Michigan City officials and residents spent a June 10 workshop reviewing how to enforce the city's 2021 short-term rental rules, debate a proposed hotline and better police-code coordination, and press for inspections of several repeatedly troublesome properties.

Councilmember Constance Olson opened the meeting by framing it as a policy workshop: "we're gonna talk about short term rentals exploring the solutions," she said, saying the session would build on the 2021 ordinance the council adopted.

The meeting narrowed quickly onto two related problems: how to use tools the city already has (registration, fines, and code enforcement) and how far the city can go without running afoul of Indiana state law. Ramel Ranks, an attorney with Harris Law Firm representing the council, told the room, "Indiana law provides the guide rails for what a city and town can and cannot do," and listed several restrictions the city cannot impose, including minimum-night stays, residency requirements for owners and neighborhood-specific limits that would treat short-term rentals differently than other residential property.

That legal limit shaped the staff and resident proposals that followed. Staff and police described operational steps the city can take without new legislation: create a short-term-rental hotline and registry that planning and code enforcement can use; integrate that registry into a GIS so repeat problem parcels can be identified; and set up a police procedure to log complaints and, when warranted, notify property owners directly.

"We can call those owners and say, hey. Look. Michigan City Police Department, we got this complaint," Chief Corley said, describing a possible "blanket" notification the department could send when repeated calls identify a problem property.

Residents pressed for firmer action on a handful of properties they said are frequently the source of noise, trash and parking congestion, naming Fogarty Street and areas along Lakeshore Drive and Canada Park as repeatedly affected neighborhoods. Several speakers said one management company appears repeatedly in listings for problem houses; multiple residents asked staff to prioritize inspections and build a case record so the city can pursue enforcement.

Council and staff reiterated what the 2021 ordinance already requires: short-term rentals must register with the city and the updated fee schedule adopted last year sets fines at $500 per violation. Olson said the registration and fines have not been consistently enforced: "this has never been enforced," she told the meeting.

Participants also discussed public-safety steps the city can pursue. City staff and some operators supported routine fire-safety inspections for units that advertise high occupancies; representatives of some professional managers said they already run annual self-checks of smoke detectors and exits. Several residents and staff expressed concern about listings that advertise capacities well beyond what homes appear able to support; one resident and a retired firefighter warned about the safety risks of advertised capacities in the dozens.

On noise, the council discussed the local ordinance's decibel threshold. The city noise code sets 60 decibels at a private-property line or from 15 feet in a public area as the measurement standard, and staff said they have equipment to measure sound levels but are still working through how to provide the measurement protocol to residents and to the police in a consistent way that will hold up in court.

Council and staff described next steps short of new ordinance powers: launch a short-term-rental hotline (for nonemergency complaints such as trash and registration issues), improve the registration portal in the city's cloud-permit system, integrate complaint records into a GIS so inspectors and police can see repeat addresses, and convene short-term rental owners to pursue voluntary "stewardship" or self-policing measures. The Community Development Board indicated it would convene willing operators to explore a voluntary stewardship or mentoring program.

No formal new ordinance or vote occurred at the workshop. Instead, staff agreed to follow up: code enforcement will be asked to inspect a short list of problem addresses identified during the meeting, the planning department will improve access to the registration form in the cloud-permit portal, and police said they would formalize a notification step for known short-term rental contacts when repeated complaints are logged.

Residents left asking for clearer contact information on listings, easier renewal and lookup of the city's registration database, and quicker, visible follow-up when code or public-safety violations are reported. Several speakers urged neighbors to call 9-1-1 for ongoing noise or safety incidents and then report secondary issues (trash, registration) through the proposed hotline so the city can build records for enforcement.

The workshop made clear that Michigan City has administrative tools it can use now, but that many features residents want ' minimum-night rules, local residency requirements, neighborhood permit caps ' are constrained by state law. Participants agreed to reconvene next steps after staff compiles registry and complaint data and the code enforcement office visits the properties flagged at the meeting.