Publication select ▼
PLEASANT RIDGE — At its March 10 meeting, the Pleasant Ridge City Commission decided to take the next steps with two ordinances that would regulate short-term rentals.
The first ordinance is a zoning amendment that would allow short-term rentals only in the multiple family and commercial districts while also allowing nonconforming uses elsewhere in the city to continue, subject to licensing requirements.
The second is a licensing ordinance that sets the short-term rental operation and management requirements.
City Manager James Breuckman stated that licenses must be renewed each year and reviewed the occupancy limits, which allow for two adults per bedroom and an occupancy maximum of eight people. Quiet hours would begin at 8 p.m and continue until 7 a.m. There also would be a prohibition on fireworks, open burning, commercial events and subletting, but licensing requirements do not apply to occupancy by family members, exchange students, temporary visitors, medical or child caregivers, and house sitters.
“There is a posting requirement that’s been added after some City Commission discussion of previous meetings that operators must post a printed notice in a conspicuous interior location indicating all of these operating requirements and enforcement standards,” he said.
Commissioner Ann Perry said, regarding the posting requirements, that the city should come up with a document.
“We as a city (should) come up with the actual document and post what gets posted so that we make sure the things really are on there … in a very visible way,” she said. “There is a template that we could come up with … because I just want to make sure that it is consistent and that it is very clear.”
Breuckman also stated that existing short-term rentals in single-family residential districts may continue as long as they submit for a short-term rental license within a 90-day window of the effective date of the ordinance and prove that they have used the unit as a short-term rental previously.
Violations from short-term rental owners would lead to penalties that range from $250 to $500 civil infractions and escalate to misdemeanors for repeated offenses. A license would be subject to revocation if the property receives “two substantiated complaints or violations within a single calendar year,” according to city documents.
Breuckman also said the city would look to contract with Granicus to help with enforcement on short-term rental listings. Granicus software reportedly can go through every website and find short-term listings that are unlicensed.
“That is something that we will need,” he said. “There’s I think 70 to 90 short-term rental listing sites out there. So, there’s no way that we can monitor all of that. The way that people list these, they come and they go, so you might check once a day, but you’ll miss listings. So, we’ll need that service.”
With the commission’s approval, the zoning amendment will go to the Planning Commission for a public hearing and recommendation, and the City Commission would later hold its own public hearings on both the zoning and licensing ordinances.
