Steve Schnell-A Community Development Oxymoron

We all click through an endless stream of “end user agreements” or licensing agreements to download or use a favorite app or access some needed software or website. Some we must agree to whether we agree fully or not. An unstated and randomly enforced one victimizes us in Cheboygan County.

You agree that by residing in, building, or owning property in Cheboygan County you are agreeing to a legally binding contract with the Cheboygan County Community Development Department that we may amend by changing Ordinance #200 as often as several times a month.  If you do not agree to this “User Agreement”, do not move to, invest in Cheboygan County, or otherwise use any of our services. By residing in, building, or owning property in Cheboygan County you, identified as the end user or a taxpaying idiot, may be subject to faulty or incorrect interpretations by staff of a poorly written Planning and Zoning Ordinance amended 139 times to date. You also agree that your property may be rezoned, redefined, restricted, devalued, made obsolete, or otherwise changed regardless of the promised protections or uses allowed at the time of purchase or construction.  

The full Board of Cheboygan County Commissioners passed Amendments #138 and #139 this week. Amendment #138 redefined “dwelling” and “family”.  Dwelling moved farther from a literal definition and family became “A group of individuals, whether related or unrelated, who are occupying a dwelling.” It would seem that might also define a squatters’ house, a drug house or a whorehouse. We may have some new uses for dwellings now allowed by law in Cheboygan County. Cheboygan County has more than 25% of dwellings occupied by singles, often seniors.  The new definition of dwelling ignores that fact saying “a group of individuals, related or not”, to make it a home.

All of this nonsense further muddles the failed planning Ordinance #200 with ambiguities and contradictions drafted by our non-resident Community Development Director Steve Schnell. Mr Schnell has spent more than half his career in community planning, more than 10 years, commuting from Charlevoix County where there is no Community Development Department. That is ten years constantly changing the playing field here in Cheboygan while he refers investors and business entrepreneurs to seek information from the Northern Lakes Economic Alliance in Boyne City.

Mr Schnell failed in his attempt to outlaw short-term or vacation rentals. He ignored the needs of Cheboygan County. Some might see it as a practice that allows some to pay their taxes on lakeshore properties. Mr Schnell saw it as opportunists making “large sums” of money. His first clandestine attempts to stop the practice used a variety of differently worded enforcement letters sent to owners identified from websites like VRBO.com.

On October 5, 2016, Mr Schnell emailed Cheboygan County Legal Counsel. “Peter, We have recently begun to receive more and more complaints about neighbors renting their homes thru vrbo.com on a very transient basis. This is going to be a big effort to do enforcement on this. After reviewing the vrbo site it appears that we could have many (50+) properties which are not in compliance with the zoning ordinance due to their renting of their homes on a transient basis. The challenge I see for us is that we don’t define transient. ….Currently, when I get a complaint, I’m reviewing the property for any previous permission to rent on a transient basis and to see if they are renting by the night or by the week. Anything less than renting by the month I’m enforcing as a violation of the ordinance.. ( Insert previous Dwelling-Family definition)….. I’d like your opinion on how solid this is legally if challenged. So far I’ve enforced this on 3 parcels and 2 of them went smoothly and the third was very polite but surprised and not happy about it. I can see more resistance so I’d like to be sure of where we stand….”. The legal counsel reply was verbal and off record.

Mr Schnell stirred up a hornet’s nest and got a boardroom full of protestors who had offered vacations rentals, some for decades, with few or no problems. The problem was Mr Schnell.  

He told legal counsel in writing: “Peter, We have recently begun to receive more and more complaints…” 

Steve Schnell-Community Development Director Oxymoron 

A FOIA to Mr Schnell sought those “more and more” complaints. Within the “enforcement” records provided by Mr Schnell, there was no record of any complainant’s name or any formal documented written complaint. Can Cheboygan County afford this form of Community Development?