In Ganges, the fight over short-term rentals turns on data nobody seems to have

By Art Nicholas
GANGES TOWNSHIP — For all the friction over short-term rentals in this rural Allegan County township, the two sides most often cast as opponents agree on a surprising amount. They agree the rentals should be regulated. They agree owners should pay fees. They agree the township needs someone to enforce whatever rules it writes. And they agree on a more basic point: no one actually knows how many short-term rentals operate in Ganges today.
Where they part ways is over how strict the rules should be, how to treat owners who invested before any rules existed, and whether the township’s emerging plan rests on real numbers or guesswork.
The Township Board imposed a temporary moratorium on new short-term rentals in December 2025, freezing new applications while officials study the issue and draft an ordinance. Originally set to lapse June 30, the pause has since been formally extended through Dec. 31, 2026. Township officials declined an interview request but confirmed the extension and indicated there is a reasonable chance they will act before the deadline rather than running the clock to year’s end. A finished draft is to be posted online ahead of a public hearing.
Short-term rentals — single-family homes rented for a few nights at a time through platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO — have multiplied along the Lake Michigan shoreline in recent years, and Ganges is one of several area townships, alongside Laketown and Saugatuck, working out how to manage them. At present the township has no licensing requirement, no rental-specific fee and no occupancy rules; owners pay only the higher property-tax rate that applies to non-owner-occupied homes.
The draft on the table
A working draft dated in March would regulate rentals in every zoning district and cap the total at 200 licenses — a figure tied to the number of rentals already operating and the recent pace of growth. It would bar homes used solely as rentals, requiring owners to occupy the property at least 30 days a year, and would set occupancy at two people per bedroom plus two per finished level, to a maximum of 12. Layered on top are requirements familiar from other lakeshore towns: $1 million liability insurance, annual registration, fire-safety and septic inspections, off-street parking, trash rules, and a local agent who must respond within an hour. Three violations in a year could cost an owner the license.
The owners organize
The draft did not arrive quietly. A version leaked online in March — posted to a Facebook group, owners say — and its restrictions alarmed investors who had bought in under no rules at all. Within weeks they formed the Ganges Vacation Rental Alliance, whose email list grew from about 30 members to 60 in three weeks, according to Charlie Fisher of Fisher3 Vacation Rentals, who helped assemble the group. Creating formal memberships for the group is scheduled for later this summer.
“We certainly think there should be regulation. There should be rules. We’re for all that,” Fisher said. “We just want it to be fair for both sides, and covered with some data.” The alliance is not seeking a free-for-all, he added: “We also don’t think there should be hundreds of these flocking into the township every year.”
The group submitted its own framework — styled an “Operation of Care” — before the board’s May 12 meeting and asked for ten minutes on the agenda to present it. The board declined the slot, though Supervisor John Hebert included the document in the meeting packet, making it public. To date, owners say, they have been able to speak only during public comment, never to walk the board through their proposal.
That framework accepts much of the township’s draft but diverges where owners feel the pain. It would set the cap at 250 rather than 200 and add a “legacy” clause guaranteeing a license to anyone renting before January 2026, or who signed a purchase or construction contract before the moratorium — a protection for owners who invested in good faith. It proposes a $500 annual fee earmarked to fund a compliance officer, and a “three-strike” system giving owners 24 hours to fix minor trash or parking problems before a strike is recorded.
The central data fight is over the 200 cap. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, Fisher said, the alliance obtained emails in which management companies told the township its published rental map — generated by a compliance vendor — was missing 30 to 40 known rentals. The alliance believes the true count is closer to 250 or 300. “We’re not sure where this 200 comes from,” Fisher said. “There’s really no data behind it. Instead of just taking an arbitrary approach, let’s look at it objectively and see what actually makes sense.”
The stakes are concrete. For example a Ganges rental — eight bedrooms on four private acres — books roughly $400,000 a year, he said, and a cut from 20 occupants to 12 would roughly halve that. A flat occupancy ceiling, he argued, makes little sense when it treats four private acres the same as an eight-bedroom house on a quarter acre next to neighbors.
A persistent voice for limits
On the other side, but less far across the divide than it might appear, is Kim Mannion of Deer Trail, a steady and process-minded advocate for tighter limits. Mannion has pressed the board for months — including pointed questions this spring about how violations would be handled with no enforcement officer in place. She has urged the township to use the moratorium time wisely to come up with a solid workable plan, called for builders to put up smaller homes rather than large rental-oriented houses being concerned about the resale use if the short term rental should cease, and strongly believes the township needs a Township Manager to keep these projects on track, and keeping more  residents engaged to see the effort through. She estimates there may be 250 to 280 rentals in the township, but stated that no one really knows for sure— and, like the owners, says the township simply does not know.
Common ground, real differences
Strip away the heat and the overlap is striking. Mannion and Fisher both want regulation, both support some form of fee, both want real enforcement, and both concede the township is operating without a reliable count of the very thing it means to cap. Owners say they are open to fees other communities already charge — Fisher noted a Norton Shores ordinance costs his group about $12,000 a year — provided the money funds enforcement or returns to the community.
Members representing both sides of the issue have also questions who and how many people are being engaged as part of the Township Committee’s research in terms of formulating an ordinance proposal.
The differences are narrower but consequential: whether the cap is 200 or 250, whether early investors are grandfathered in, whether occupancy is a flat ceiling or scaled to lot size, and whether the township’s numbers can withstand scrutiny. Owners also fault the process, saying a study committee formed in late 2025 never reached out to them despite requests.
What’s next
The Planning Commission has signaled a public hearing will be scheduled as work on the zoning amendments continues, and officials stress no decisions have been made. For now the moratorium holds through year’s end and the draft remains in revision. The question underneath it all is unresolved: whether Ganges can write rules that preserve the rural character residents prize without writing off owners who bought and built before there were any rules to follow. An answer is expected before Dec. 31 — and possibly well before.
Township board and planning commission minutes, the draft ordinance and related documents are posted at gangestownship.org.