Here We Grow

Last week a total of about 500 people attended three Grand Vision scenario planning workshops in the Traverse City area. They looked at three small parts of our region: downtown Traverse City, Interlochen, and Acme. When it was all over, The Grand Vision consultant team had collected more than 60 maps from workshop participants, who were asked to offer ideas about the location and types of buildings they would like to see on specific property parcels on very detailed maps.

By now I’ve served as a table facilitator at three of the first four workshops, counting the kickoff workshop last October. The job is easy: I help participants understand and complete the mapping exercise. It felt like a cross between elementary school teacher and traffic cop as people figured out the maps and the meaning of the sticker icons they were supposed to put down on them. The stickers represented future buildings, and it was fascinating as folks politely navigated the delicate issue of placing, say, a big, fat brown chip representing a 10-story building in someone else’s neighborhood.

Sure—it was messy and at times even a little combative as strangers and neighbors discussed future development patterns. But this was democracy in action, and couldn’t be further from the notorious smoke-filled back room deals where community decisions are made by a small group of good old boys.

One of the tables at the Acme workshop was a perfect microcosm of the debate that has been going on in that community about how to develop a town center in the face of a proposal for a mega-mall with big-box stores.

I’ve been a planner in this region for nearly 20 years, and I’ve participated in many local government meetings where frustrated citizens try to understand how new developments get proposed and approved. Where’s the predictability? Who’s coordinating all this growth? Isn’t anybody looking at the big picture?

The result of Michigan’s addiction to local control of land use decision making is that no one is looking at the big picture. Local government officials typically bristle at—and ignore—any suggestions that they should cede any control to a larger regional authority.

The Grand Vision scenario planning process meets that problem in a unique way: It puts the one group that local elected officials cannot ignore in charge of the big picture—the public. These mapping workshops are providing the raw data for developing alternative future growth scenarios for the six-county region. All of the marks on those maps will be digitized and run through a computer model as a possible future scenario. And by June it will be the public that selects a final growth strategy, not some guys in a back room somewhere.

How much more democratic can it get?

As Leelanau County grows, so does its need for electricity. And no matter its charming rural scenery, most everyone who lives there expect all the conveniences of a big city—including an uninterrupted supply of power.

Today that means putting up more power lines connected to a grid of electrical power plants that burn coal strip-mined from the mountains of West Virginia. As hard as some are trying, we can not immediately change that reality. That is why Wolverine Power Cooperative, which services Leelanau, wants to build a substation next to the windmill on M-72 in Elmwood Township.

A likely view of a proposed electrical substation at M-72 and Bugai Roads in Elmwood Township

The proposal is stirring up lots of controversy: Neighbors don’t like the idea of placing a big chunk of heavy industry—a 4.5-acre electrical substation filled with grey, 80-ft. towers and lots of new power lines—right on the main thoroughfare into a tourist community. Opponents also don’t like how the decision was made—quickly and quietly by an obliging township official who is a former Wolverine’s board member and current Cherryland Electric Cooperative board member, and owns the property where the substation would go.

This Tuesday night, Feb. 6, the Elmwood Township Zoning Board of Appeals will decide whether this substation is, in fact, an essential service that should be exempt from township zoning rules.

Of course, Wolverine will argue that its proposed substation is essential. But will the zoning board recognize that the scenic character of the M-72 is also essential and must be preserved in order to protect Leelanau’s economic future as a tourist destination? As a gateway into Leelanau County, M-72 shapes residents’ and visitors’ impression of the picturesque area they are entering. We cannot allow this crucial stretch of highway to be marred by such a completely unsightly industrial use. Clearly, Wolverine should look elsewhere for a better substation location.

But even if substation opponents carry the day, it’s hardly “game over.” It’s high time that the community stops fighting the same war over and over about development in high-pressure areas like Bugai Road and M-72. As long as that area’s residents keep assuming they can stop any development proposal solely through favorable interpretations of their zoning ordinance, they are ignoring reality: Eventually an unsightly, poorly planned development will win.

That’s because that intersection—which, in a fine tribute to local government structure run amok, straddles three townships and two counties—is highly desirable for commercial and residential development, thanks to its proximity to Traverse City and heavy commuter traffic from all of Leelanau Peninsula. Past proposals for the area include a minor league baseball stadium, a mini-mart shopping center, a church, and a subdivision. It is naive—and perhaps unfair to the current property owners—to assume that the intersection will remain agricultural just because the zoning ordinance says so.

If, as a community, we truly wish to maintain the farmland character of this gateway corridor, we simply must start talking to property owners and township officials about how best to maintain viable agriculture there—or whatever other type of development the community thinks appropriate. More broadly, to preserve productive farms anywhere in the township, not just along M-72, we must explore all sorts of options for farmers: purchasing their development rights, transferring them, and, yes, allowing more and taller wind energy systems—whose royalty payments to farmers provide them with additional, often badly needed income.

While locating wind turbines can also stir community debate about aesthetics, there is a fundamental difference between the sight of a large, aerodynamic, power-producing machine that simultaneously cuts pollution, fights global warming, and increases our energy independence, and a large factory yard that does nothing to meet any of those crucial challenges.

So, instead of fighting lots of little battles, one at a time, we must recognize that some development is appropriate in this location, and work with landowners to figure out what most people can accept.

Township officials need look no further than Acme to see what happens when the community does not clearly articulate an acceptable design for highly desirable property. We have to get beyond taking sides over new development and, instead, work together on a shared vision for how that development should occur.

“Welcome! Buenas noches! Nice to see you!”

That’s what I say every Monday night as I greet the good folks participating in our Get Farming! business planning classes.

Every time the door opens in our Michigan Works classroom, a rush of blustery air shepherds a group of snow-covered students into the room. More than 40 people from as far away as Grand Rapids and Ellsworth are taking our classes, and it’s quite a group— young and old, farm owners and farm workers, speaking English, Spanish, and Spanglish, my second language. They’re diverse, but they are unified in their shared dreams for farming.

Hearing these farm dreams every week in a class on marketing or labor management or other business matters renews my hope for the future of agriculture. Our classes confirm what many in agriculture say: There is a new generation of farmers out there. Hopefully, our Get Farming! program will, as we advertise, help “get their dreams out their heads and into the fields.”

The students are on the right track. There’s Herberto, who worked as a farm laborer for years and recently bought land in Antrim County, where he wants to start his own beef farm. Then there’s Judy, a baby boomer who wants to restore her family’s dormant Leelanau County orchard to its former glory. Cristin and Brian have their master’s degrees in agriculture and want to start their own winery on Old Mission Peninsula. The list of farm plans goes on and on.

This week’s class on financial planning featured local banker John Hyatt of Fifth Third Bank. He talked about what banks look for in a loan application and business plan. He was joined by Dr. Rob Sirrine, the Michigan State University Extension Educator for Leelanau County.

Dr. Sirrine provided students with extensive information on government loans, grants, and alternative funding sources that help farmers execute their business plans. Hands went up throughout the evening with questions about collateral, payment plans, grant writing, and a topic that may not have been a concern for other generations of farmers— student loan debt. Like many other Monday night classes, it was after 10 p.m. when the students walked back out into the wintry night, by now considerably colder, still talking with each other about their farm plans.

It’s inspiring to watch these farmers get support from…and learn from…each other. It gives me hope that, despite the encroaching development I see through out the region where I grew up, there are new farmers who want to cultivate the land and keep the region’s agricultural tradition alive.

Even though Leelanau County soundly defeated a farmland preservation ballot measure in 2006, over a quarter of the students in these classes want to start their farms in that very place. And despite the high cost of entry to farming, with farmland running $7,000-$15,000 an acre in this region, students are cobbling together money through grants, land leases, and fulltime off-the-farm work in order to get on the land and provide me and the rest of the region with fresh local food.

All of the talk about fruits and vegetables has me ready for spring and thinking about what faces from these classes will one day have booths at the farmers’ market across the street. Maybe I’ll be able to buy beef from Herberto and heirloom apples from Judy—to be complimented with a glass of wine made by Cristin and Brian.

In the meantime I’ll just settle for spring.

When I moved to northern Michigan from Las Vegas seven months ago, a lot of my close friends in Nevada questioned my decision.

I was leaving an established, secure job that I’d worked at for 11 years to work for a non-profit. And I was also moving from a place where it hardly ever rains to an often cold, cloudy, and wet climate.

But what my friends didn’t know is what you and I do know: This is one of the world’s special, beautiful places. The woodlands are simply remarkable. The shorelines of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior (my favorite) are absolutely breathtaking. The people of Northern Michigan are genuine and real.

By moving here, I feel like I’ve given my three young children a most precious gift—a chance at a childhood in a place that still has a natural environment and an innocence that can nurture their youthful, curious spirits.

How long will that innocence and naturalness last? That is something that my work with the Institute in Emmet County has me thinking about. You see, the county is in the midst of updating its comprehensive plan, the document that guides how Emmet will grow. It may all sound like a boring government procedure, it is, in fact, one of the most important things the county will ever do.

For the process to work, county residents have to tell their elected leaders what they would like to see Emmet County look like in the coming decades: What makes it into the county’s comprehensive plan dictates what ends up in the county’s zoning ordinance. That, in turn, controls what types of residential, commercial, and other development patterns will surface in Emmet County in the coming years.

We all know about the big-box blight that has invaded Bear Creek Township in the last decade and that there are few limits to this type of development in Emmet County. So the threat of big-box and strip development to Emmet County is very real. If we keep allowing this development, Emmet will soon look just like everywhere else, complete with bad traffic.

But if local residents are willing to stand up and tell the county that they want specific changes to the county’s comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance that preserve farmlands—and which prevent future big box and strip mall development—then we can change the county’s future for the better.

Last month I attended a meeting for the comprehensive plan, and I was impressed with local officials’ willingness to emphasize the need for the plan to preserve the county’s natural resources and farmlands. Emmet County deserves credit for making these top priorities in the county’s comprehensive plan.

But I was also deeply disappointed, because the only people in attendance were four Comprehensive Plan committee members, a local lawyer, and I. No one from the general public was there.

This was amazing to me. Think about it—a chance to shape the future of Emmet County forever, and no one was there.

So I’m issuing a challenge to you. Let’s participate in this together, and let us all tell county leaders what we want.

But I’m not just putting it all on you. I’m also going to challenge the county to find out what they are doing to encourage public participation. The county should be reaching out to all of the community’s shareholders to demand that they participate, and they should do so immediately.

To the south, Benzie County has done this successfully. Nearly a decade ago, they formed a 100-person citizen committee that formed an award-winning county master plan. Emmet County should be doing the same, but so far, its future has been left to a handful of people.

A date for the comprehensive plan’s land use subcommittee will be scheduled in the coming weeks. If you want more information, shoot me an email, and I’ll make sure you know when this meeting date gets set.

Let’s get involved, and let’s make a difference. It will be a great feeling. I promise.

My kids don’t attend Traverse City Area Public Schools, so I have not formed a position about the many proposed changes that have raised such a stir among the TCAPS community. Faced with fiscal challenges, the TCAPS school board last year made some tough decisions that included switching from semesters to trimesters, moving the Montessori school to its own building, shifting sixth graders from elementary to the middle schools and closing three elementary schools.

Last week, the TCAPS board looked at the subject, and their decisions, one more time—and stood behind all of them.

Those are all big changes if they are affecting your child – but the decisions about closing schools have much broader implications for the entire community. You don’t have to be a land use planner to know that proximity to good schools is an important factor in where people choose to buy a home. Because I am a planner who has supported Acme Township’s growth strategy and I am actively involved in the regional Grand Vision planning process, I was asked by a group of citizens from the Acme area to talk to the TCAPS board when they were asked to reconsider the decision to close Acme’s Bertha Vos elementary school.

No community in our region is trying harder than Acme Township to resist the pattern of sprawling development that has already overtaken so many other places. Years ago Acme residents prepared a thoughtful master plan that recognized the significant growth coming their way and proposed a new town center to accommodate the new residents and associated commercial development. Rather than let the growth sprawl along US-31 and M-72 and into the productive orchards, the plan was to concentrate that growth into a walkable village center that would give Acme a Main Street.

Unfortunately, the subsequent zoning ordinance fell short of clearly defining how to construct the new town that the master plan had envisioned, and for the past five years the township has been locked in a battle with developers to try to retain the small-town character they want to create, instead of the mega-mall and big box stores that have been proposed.

Not much growth has happened in Acme while that dispute rages on. But that does not mean that growth will not come to Acme. Preliminary results from the Grand Vision process have identified Acme as a high growth area. And if the township’s master plan ultimately prevails in creating a new walkable village, it will attract plenty of new residents seeking to live in a community with lots of small town character and neighborhood amenities.

Good planning suggests that one of those amenities should be a nearby elementary school.

I was not a part of the TCAPS process that made the decision on which schools to close, and I certainly respect the many factors that they must consider. But the Michigan Land Use Institute promoted keeping Central Grade School open in Traverse City for the very reason that schools should be located in walkable neighborhoods.

Acme Township is trying desperately to create a place that is similar to Traverse City’s central neighborhood, and it is a real setback to those efforts to lose their community elementary school. I want to be on the record in support of Acme Township’s efforts to put a halt to sprawl, and hope that the TCAPS board understands the significance of what removing Acme’s community elementary school means to that effort.