Petoskey council Thursday: tougher vacant-building rules, a Margarita’s liquor license on Mitchell Street and a $133,740 downtown assessment roll

PETOSKEY — Owners of vacant buildings in Petoskey would face tighter rules under an ordinance change the City Council is set to vote on Thursday, Nov. 5, when it also takes up a new downtown liquor license and the roll that spreads downtown business assessments for 2027.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall, with a Zoom option for residents who can’t attend, according to the agenda.

Vacant buildings: register every six months

The council adopted Petoskey’s vacant building ordinance, No. 805, in August 2025. It requires owners of buildings empty for more than 60 days in a row to register them with the city, name a local agent who can respond within an hour and keep the property secured, heated or winterized and free of trash and tall weeds. Downtown, empty street-level windows must be covered with an approved decorative treatment that looks like an active storefront. A violation is a $500 civil infraction, and each day counts as a separate offense.

After a year under the rules, city staff want two changes “to address on-going deficiencies,” the agenda memo says: registrations would have to be renewed every six months instead of every year, and the exemption for buildings listed for sale would be eliminated. The change had its first reading Oct. 19, when City Manager Shane Horn told the council 13 vacant properties were registered, according to the draft minutes.

Margarita’s and the downtown assessment roll

The council will also consider supporting a downtown redevelopment liquor license for Petoskey 440 LLC, doing business as Margarita’s Petoskey, at 440 E. Mitchell St. The company already runs a restaurant at 751 Spring St., and its owner is the majority owner of 17 other restaurants in northwest Lower Michigan, according to a Downtown Management Board memo in the packet.

The space formerly housed second locations of Tilly’s Tafel and Petoskey Cheese, and the Downtown Management Board unanimously recommended the license Oct. 20. If approved, it would be the seventh of 10 such licenses the city allows downtown, the memo says. The Michigan Liquor Control Commission makes the final call.

Downtown property owners pay a special assessment, not a property tax, for the Downtown Management Board’s marketing, promotions and economic enhancement work. The board had asked for a 3.2% rate increase for 2027, but on Oct. 19 the council approved a 0% increase after business owners spoke for and against raising it, the minutes show. The 2027 plan also drops the downtown trolley.

The new roll adds lower levels and short-term rentals, which raised the assessed square footage by 14%, council members noted. Even at a flat rate, they said, the bigger roll would bring in about $9,000 more than the budgeted amount. The rates are $0.2219 per square foot for first-floor commercial space, $0.0558 for other floors and $0.0666 for vacant lots. The roll in the packet totals $133,740.73. Thursday’s vote would put it on file and set a public hearing for 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16.

Also on the agenda, and the data center pause

The council will consider joining a Michigan Public Power Agency program, run with the company Voltus, that pays commercial and industrial electric customers each year for agreeing to cut their power use during grid emergencies. Staff say the city’s only cost would be the agency’s staff time and overhead for the program. The council also sets its 2027 meeting schedule and is scheduled to go into closed session on union contract talks.

At its last meeting, the council voted 4-0 on Oct. 19 to adopt Ordinance 818, a one-year moratorium on permits and approvals for data centers while the city rewrites its zoning code. The city attorney told the council no developers had contacted staff about a data center, according to the minutes. The community comment period on the zoning rewrite has been extended to Nov. 15, the Planning Commission heard Oct. 21.

Sources:
City of Petoskey, City Council packet for Nov. 5, 2026 (agenda; draft Oct. 19 minutes incl. Ordinance 818, programs and services vote and vacant building first reading; vacant building memo and ordinance text; Margarita’s liquor license memo and application summary; MPPA demand response memo; downtown special-assessment memo and roll), https://www.petoskey.us/City%20Council/Agendas/2026/council%20packet%20-%2011.05.26.pdf
City of Petoskey, “Council Adopts Ordinance 818” (Oct. 19 meeting summary), https://www.petoskey.us/news_detail_T29_R356.php
City of Petoskey, “Planning Commission Appoints Member to Steering Committee” (zoning comment period extended to Nov. 15), https://www.petoskey.us/news_detail_T29_R358.php
Photo: Royalbroil, “East Mitchell Street Historic District.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0), cropped and resized, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:East_Mitchell_Street_Historic_District.jpg

Petoskey

Tags: Petoskey City Council · Vacant buildings · Downtown Petoskey · Liquor licenses · Special assessments · Data centers