Augusta

Augusta has no zoning district that names ‘short-term rental’ or ‘vacation rental’ as a permitted use, so allowability is a parcel-by-parcel question you should settle in writing before you list. The village Zoning Ordinance (Ordinance #139, as amended) divides Augusta into seven districts: A Agriculture, R-1 Residential (Single-Family and Two-Family), R-2 Residential (Multiple-Family), R-3 Mobile Home Park, C-1 Commercial (General), C-2 Commercial (Highway), and I-1 Restricted Industrial.^[6] The ordinance does define commercial lodging uses — ‘hotel,’ ‘motel’ (which it describes as including motor courts, motor lodges, and tourist homes), and ‘boardinghouse’ — but it places those uses in the commercial districts, not the residential ones.^[6] A whole-house Airbnb in an R-1 neighborhood therefore sits in a gray area: it is not a listed residential use and not clearly a commercial lodging use. One practical caveat matters here: the adopted Zoning Ordinance posted by the village is an older scanned-image PDF, not machine-readable text, so specific by-district permissions cannot be quoted line-by-line from the file. For any specific property, confirm the zoning district on the Kalamazoo County parcel viewer and get a written determination from the village before you commit.

No. The Village of Augusta has no short-term-rental ordinance, permit, registration, or license — there is nothing to file and no village fee to pay to operate an STR.^[5] This is a verified finding rather than a research gap: the village’s published ordinance index lists every ordinance it has adopted, #1 through #206, and none of them creates an STR program, a rental registry, or a transient-lodging license.^[5] What still applies to an Augusta STR is the layer underneath a local ordinance. The property must be a legal dwelling under the Zoning Ordinance for its district, any construction or conversion work needs a village building permit under the State Construction Code, and the operator is responsible for any Michigan state-level tax obligations that apply to short stays — confirm those with the Michigan Department of Treasury. If the village adopts an STR ordinance later, it will appear on the Ordinances and Resolutions page, which is the page to bookmark.^[4]

Any structural, electrical, plumbing, or mechanical work to ready a property for guests needs a Village of Augusta building permit — Augusta runs its own permit desk and is not part of the Kalamazoo Area Building Authority (KABA) that serves several neighboring townships.^[9][12] The village’s building permit application is a single form covering new structures, additions, alterations, accessory buildings, demolition, pools, and signs, with separate check-offs for electrical, mechanical, plumbing, sewer, water, driveway, and soil-erosion permits.^[9] Ordinance #204, adopted in 2024, formally designates the village’s building inspector as Augusta’s State Construction Code enforcing agency and folds FEMA floodplain-management standards into the local code — relevant here because Augusta sits along the Kalamazoo River and Augusta Creek, so a riverfront parcel may carry floodplain requirements that affect finished-floor elevations and renovation work.^[8] The building inspector, Gary White, can be reached directly at (269) 420-7548 for permit and code questions.^[10] There is no separate STR safety inspection, because the village has no STR ordinance — the building code is the safety baseline.

Augusta sets no STR-specific occupancy cap, guest limit, parking minimum, or quiet-hours window, because it has no STR ordinance — but a short-term rental is still bound by the village’s general nuisance and property rules, which apply to any property regardless of how it is used.^[5] The village Nuisance Ordinance (#180) defines and prohibits nuisances such as excessive noise, accumulated junk and debris, and conditions that disturb neighboring properties, and the village also enforces an anti-blight ordinance (#181) covering exterior property upkeep.^[11] Practical occupancy limits come from two places instead of an STR rule: the Michigan State Construction Code’s habitable-space and egress requirements, and the dwelling-type limits of the parcel’s zoning district.^[6] Because Augusta is a small, tight-knit village where the same person serves as village manager and police chief, neighbor complaints reach village leadership quickly — operators who set clear guest expectations on noise, parking, and trash tend to avoid trouble.^[3]

As of May 2026 Augusta has not adopted, proposed, or publicly floated a short-term-rental ordinance — recent ordinance activity has been about zoning structure and infrastructure, not rentals.^[4] The notable recent items are Ordinance #203 (2023), which added the Section 8.9 mixed-use provision allowing a combined commercial-and-residential use on qualifying parcels; Ordinance #204 (2024), the floodplain and building-code update; and Ordinance #206 (2025), a stormwater and illicit-discharge ordinance.^[7][8] The village also adopted a Land Use Plan for 2025 through 2045, the long-range document any future rezoning would have to be consistent with.^[10] To catch a future STR or rental-registration ordinance early, watch two pages: the Ordinances and Resolutions page, where every newly adopted ordinance is posted as a PDF, and the Village Documents page, which holds the Land Use Plan and other planning materials.^[4][10]