Renting your Onekama cottage by the week? The township has rules now

If you own a place on Portage Lake and rent it out a weekend here, a week there, the rules changed in 2023. Onekama Township adopted a short-term rental ordinance that took effect on April 17, 2023. The main requirement is simple: a vacation rental has to be registered with the township, and that registration has to be renewed every year.

First, know which Onekama you’re in. The Village of Onekama is the small incorporated downtown. The surrounding Onekama Township is a separate government with its own rule book. The two have worked through short-term rentals on their own timelines. So two cottages a mile apart can sit under different paperwork, depending on which side of the village line they fall. “Is it allowed, and what do I have to file?” gets a township answer, not a county one.

A buyer should sort this out before signing. The registration follows the use of the property, not the listing. Buy an unregistered rental and you inherit that gap. The simplest move is to call the township office and ask whether the exact parcel is registered and in good standing. The office keeps short hours, generally Monday through Wednesday. Read the current ordinance yourself, too, rather than trust what a real-estate listing promises.

None of this kills the short-term rental; plenty of Onekama owners run them by the book. It just means the lake cottage now comes with a small annual errand at the township hall.