City Manager Gibbons opened a Nov. 3 workshop for the Garden City City Council to review three options to strengthen blight enforcement and rental regulation, including a neighborhood petition overlay modeled on East Lansing that would restrict new rental licenses in a mapped area.

The overlay model described by staff would let property owners propose a district boundary, gather signatures from at least two‑thirds (66.7%) of property owners within that boundary, send the petition to the city clerk, and then proceed through planning commission review and a council decision. "Ultimately city council holds the ultimate authority of it," City Manager Gibbons said, describing the overlay as a zoning‑based restriction that would not change base zoning but would limit the number of rental licenses allowed in the overlay.

City Attorney Kevin Bennett cautioned that case law on such overlays is sparse. "This is kind of a novel approach. Case law on this specific issue is scant," Bennett said, and advised the council to consider the East Lansing model narrowly: "For that reason, I would not ask the council to consider anything more expansive than this East Lansing ordinance." Bennett referenced an unpublished Michigan Court of Appeals decision from 2008 and advised that ordinance language and supporting findings be drafted to reduce legal exposure.

Councilmembers pressed staff about local data and practical implementation. Council member King noted Garden City's rental share is much lower than typical college towns described by proponents of overlays: "What I could find for Garden City, we're closer to, between 10, 15 to 20%." Council member Kara Fotis and others cited an estimate from staff that the city has "about a thousand registered" rental properties out of roughly 11,000 homes. Multiple councilmembers asked administration to produce a city map showing rental locations, repeat‑offender records, and whether single owners or management groups control multiple rental properties.

Staff described options for the size of petition districts and said planning commission and council would retain discretion to reject proposed boundaries that appear inconsistent with the ordinance's intent. Bennett recommended assembling both ordinance language that states clear goals and supporting records (for example, historical violations or nuisance data) to justify the overlay in case of legal challenge.

No ordinance was adopted or formally introduced at the workshop. Councilmembers directed staff and the city attorney to return with: a map of registered rental locations, a report on repeat violations and ownership concentration, draft ordinance language options, and any supporting nuisance data staff recommends.