Beecher trustees direct attorney to prepare rewritten zoning ordinance, add short‑term rental rules

Trustees of the Village of Beecher voted Feb. 10 to direct the village attorney to draft an approval ordinance for a substantially rewritten zoning ordinance and an amended zoning district map.

The instruction follows a yearlong rewrite led by Teska and Associates. Keith of Teska summarized the work to trustees and staff, saying the effort aimed to update the code to reflect legal changes, integrate piecemeal amendments made over the past 20 years, and make the ordinance easier to use. “We rewrote the whole thing,” Keith said. He told the board the sign regulations were completely rewritten to reflect a Supreme Court decision that “drastically changed the way you can regulate signs,” and that the rewrite integrated recent topics such as marijuana regulations, trailers and fences.

The planning, building…