Emails contradict Park Township’s short-term rental ban

Emails uncovered during a lawsuit may bolster the argument of property owners who are fighting a township’s ban on short-term rentals.

Officials of Ottawa County’s Park Township voted in late 2022 to enforce a long-dormant ban on short-term rentals. Property owners sued the township, saying the 1974 ban had never been enforced, as CapCon has previously reported.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs obtained through the discovery process a July 2018 email that had been sent to Ed DeVries, the township’s zoning administrator. It asked DeVries which areas of the township had a zoning category that allowed for “Vacation Homes/rental on a weekly basis.”

DeVries replied, “We do not currently regulate rentals, either long term or short term.”

The township website has an FAQ section that asks if any short-term rentals are allowed under a grandfather provision. “In the case of short-term rentals, this was never a permitted use in Park Township, so grandfathering isn’t applicable,” it reads.

But the township allowed short-term rentals for years, said Kyle Konwinski, an attorney for Park Township Neighbors, the nonprofit formed to oppose the ban.

Konwinski said the township is trying to ban short-term rentals by saying they were never legal under the zoning ordinance. “The township’s position is contrary to the plain terms of its own zoning ordinance, as demonstrated by the township’s 50 years of allowing short-term rentals in the township,” Konwinski said in a statement.

A Dec. 21, 2021, email from a Park Township code enforcement employee reads in part:

“The issues with the rentals, I will bring up to Howard Fink, the Township Manager. There (are) currently no ordinances on short term rentals in Park Township as the board has not addressed this issue.”

Three months later, a township press release said: “Short Term rentals are currently illegal in Park Township, and have been since the Zoning Ordinance was adopted on February 7, 1974.”

The township does not comment on current litigation.