By James Windell
When Melissa Schlinger appeared before the South Haven Planning Commission on Thursday, September 4, 2025, she requested that the Planning Commission approve her property at 307 Spruce Street for a variance. The reason for the request was so her house could be used as a Short-Term Rental (STR).
After Schlinger presented her case, a brief public hearing was held to allow the public to comment on her request.
How brief was this public hearing? It lasted less than a minute as no one in the audience in the City Hall’s City Council Chamber had a comment either in support or opposition to her request.
After the public hearing was concluded, there was virtually no discussion by the Planning Commission members as there seemed no reason to deny Schlinger’s request.
After all, Schlinger’s house is in Harbor Club, a neighborhood of 86 homes off Baseline Road on the north side of South Haven. Why is that significant? Of the 86 homes in this neighborhood, 73 were already STRs prior to the Planning Commission meeting. One of the requirements for the Planning Commission approving a variance is whether that variance would be consistent with other properties in the neighborhood. In effect, the Commission would have to consider whether it would be unusual or out of character for Schlinger’s house to become an STR. Are there other houses in Harbor Club that are STRs?
So, given that 73 of 86 properties – or 85% of them – are already STRs, there would be no harm to the neighborhood should one more house become an STR.
Harbor Club is in an area designated by the Master Plan as an overlay district. This means that this is one of the areas of the city that can still have properties that can request and be approved for STRs.
According to a January, 2025 report prepared by Kelly Getman-Dissette, Zoning Administrator, and Ryan Bosscher, GIS Technician, when the city is divided into 8 statistical districts, most of those districts have between 12% and 35% STRs. However, the district with the largest percentage of STRs is SW Downtown. Bordered by Water Street and the Black River to the north, Elkenburg Street to the south, Center Street to the east, and Lake Michigan to the west, nearly 30% of all STRs in the city are in this area. There are 785 residential units within this area and 236 (30.1%) of these are registered short-term rentals.
An area designated as the Northside North of Dyckman Ave is the area that Getman-Dissette and Bosscher found had the second largest concentration of STRs. This area is bordered by Baseline Road to the north, Dyckman Ave. to the south, the Black River to the east, and Lake Michigan to the west. This area however excludes the Harbor Club development and almost 20% of all STRS in the city are in this area. There are 785 residential units within this area and 157 (20.2%) of these are registered STRs.
As it stands, the Harbor Club neighborhood may have the greatest number of STRs of any development in South Haven.
Getman-Dissette says that Schlinger’s property was the first to apply under the new ordinance. Schlinger needed a special land use approval, which the Planning Commission, reviewing an application for the first STR under the new ordinance, approved.
