South Haven officials are continuing deliberations regarding the short term rental ordinance for the city. During a special city council meeting on Thursday, council had conversations about specifics in the ordinance, which included the cap among other issues.

City council woman Mary Hosley stated the draft that was reviewed during the meeting from the planning commission did not meet the goals the council was seeking.

“It did not address a concern that the setting the cap at the number of currently existing short-term rentals fails to take into consideration that there may be some short-term rentals that were improperly granted and as we have been advised if it hasn’t been properly granted a zoning right does not apply,” Hosley said. 

Based off the discussions held during the meeting, city council approved developing a work group to review and change the ordinance draft before it goes back to the planning commission for a public hearing. This group would include two city council members, the city attorney, and city manager Kate Hosier.

During the meeting, Hosier noted that putting together a group would be better in hopes of getting the ordinance done in a specific amount of time while also having real-time feedback.

“We can make sure that we’re meeting regularly and getting this through the door, but again, I think that because we know that there’s a lot of documents that go back and forth, it might be just easier just to meet in real time and have these discussions so that we’re making real progress instead of just trading documents past each other in email,” Hosier said. 

The council gave city manager and the new group four weeks from Thursday to come up with a new ordinance draft that addresses a cap with potentially lower number of rentals, parking concerns, occupancy of STRs, and maintaining a neighborhood feel.