Smart Zoning? That Claim is Pure Puffery and the Ad Promoting it is Full of Inaccuracies
Calling a Yes vote smart zoning and suggesting that the existing ordinance, which has guided the township for decades is not, is an affront to reasonable thinking people.
The claims in several ads are just pure misrepresentation. It’s sad that some more recent residents of the township are so quick to support an illegal ordinance and advocate that others do the same.
What’s particularly egregious are claims that it protects wetlands. Those claims just don’t stand up. Why?
1. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Ecology (EGLE) has already issued a wetlands permit for Timber Shores. EGLE is known for its unbiased approach to environmental protection and serves to benefit us all in Michigan. Michigan was one of the first states to regulate development.
2. Wetlands impacts are minimal. In fact, there will be a net gain of wetlands on the property. Developers plan to restore wetlands previously filled in the 1960s when the original Timber Shores was developed.
3. The wetland mitigation plan includes planting hundreds of native wetlands plants and placing 15.9 acres of land in a conservation easement with the State of Michigan.
What’s better than a net gain of wetlands and a permanent conservation easement?
Other claims that don’t stand up include the assertion that a new ordinance was needed to implement these changes. Yet in an October 28, 2021 planning commission meeting the zoning administrator said:
“Your ordinance itself is pretty good as it is. It gives you a lot of latitude as a planning commission to look at special uses and set conditions and standards and evaluate something like buffering and setbacks. You have quite a bit of latitude.”
Want to hear that yourself? Click here.
The planning consultant, who cost the township at least $13,000, also told members of the planning commission that:
“Your ordinance actually, at least for the shoreline, under existing item A – where it says ordinary high water mark – that even specifies that the planning commission may increase this required setback where it deems necessary during a site plan review proceeding. So that’s already written out in your ordinance.”
That’s it in a nutshell – the existing ordinance would have given the planning commission a lot of latitude. Does any thinking person believe that this ordinance was anything but a sham? It was created to do the bidding of the then supervisor, who lives across the road from the Timber Shores property and who promptly resigned once the ordinance was passed
The detractors, most of whom are not from the area originally and probably don’t have any memory of the original Timber Shores, also claim that increased setbacks are essential to being good neighbors. For a look at the “good neighbors” who have routinely vilified the developer and for insights into where they live click here.
Then make up your own mind.