Keweenaw Common Ground Workshop starts planning ball rolling Doug Sherk (standing), Eagle Harbor Township Land Use Planning Steering Committee co-chairman, summarizes his committee’Äôs discussion of assets and goals for their township at the Keweenaw Common Ground Workshop on land use planning Feb. 5 in the Mohawk School. MOHAWK ’Äì More than 50 interested residents, property owners, local government officials and township land use planning committee members came together at the Feb. 5 Keweenaw Common Ground Workshop to take the first steps toward developing a county-wide land use plan. Reactions of participants were mostly positive and optimistic about the possibility of diverse groups or "stakeholders" communicating in order to learn what they have in common as a basis for land use planning. Bill Luokkanen, Allouez Township supervisor Allouez Township Supervisor Bill Luokkanen said he and his township planning committee members were enthusiastic about the workshop. "They’Äôre fired up, and they’Äôre ready to get to work. They’Äôre involved and they’Äôre interested and I’Äôm very happy about it," Luokkanen said. "I thought (the workshop) was pretty good. We had quite a few committee members there, and they picked up a lot of helpful hints." During the individual township sessions on defining assets and goals, Jon Soper (standing), Allouez Township Land Use Planning Committee vice-chairman, answers a question from committee member John Griffith (with hat). Also pictured, clockwise from far right, are Al Gunari, committee chairman; Pauline Johnson, committee member; Frank Stubenrauch, Keweenaw County commissioner; and committee members Jane Griffith, Jim Studebaker and Genie Mintken. In the background, Sherman Township Supervisor Dudley Martin meets with his committee. He said his committee members, who have already met several times, are gathering resources and information at the township level to contribute to the county planning effort. During the workshop activity of determining township assets and goals, Allouez Township committee members mentioned a variety of concerns, which included protecting scenic views, historical sites and public access to land and water as well as developing industry. Said Jon Soper, committee vice-chair, "We’Äôd like to keep the development near existing communities, existing utilities and resources." Soper said goals would include designating two or three industrial and commercial zones, changing the current zoning where needed and providing for buffers between different types of zoning. From Allouez, the largest township in population, to Sherman, which has the smallest number of year-round residents (only 49), all five township planning committees were represented at the workshop. The townships have been forming these committees since the Keweenaw County Zoning/Planning Commission requested last fall that the County Board of Commissioners ask township supervisors to form land use study committees for assistance in updating the future land use segment of the county’Äôs Comprehensive Development Plan. Sherman Township Supervisor Dudley Martin, left, discusses township assets and goals with his Land Use Planning Committee members, Phyllis Piquette and Ed Kraai. Allouez Township Committee members are pictured in the background, with Jane Pelto, Keweenaw County zoning administrator, far right. Sherman Township Supervisor Dudley Martin said his township’Äôs land use committee of three just solidified this week. Present with him at the Common Ground workshop were committee members Phyllis Piquette and Ed Kraai. "We’Äôre working on our assets and preserving what we feel is important to preserve, and our remoteness is one," Martin said. "We’Äôre not crowded. It’Äôs quiet. That (current quality of life) is one of the things that drew me there." Kraai said one goal for Sherman Township would be to preserve the present quality of life while increasing some services. Christa Walck, Common Ground Core Group chair and facilitator of the workshop, said communication "within your township, across township borders and in the community" was one of the main reasons for the Keweenaw County workshop on land use planning. "We want to sustain our economic and natural resources and not to squander them," she said. "We need to communicate and work more together." Walck first presented the Common Ground Guiding Principles: Long term economic prosperity depends on protecting natural and historical resources. Inappropriate development poses serious threats to local ecosystems and our way of life. Protection will only succeed with local coordinated land use planning and support by local people. Sustainable economic development compatible with environmental protection is important and possible. During a coffee break at the Common Ground Workshop, Hancock resident Barbara Manninen and her sister Jean Pemberton of Mancelona, Mich., study the current zoning map of Keweenaw County provided by the Western Upper Peninsula Planning District Region (WUPPDR), which has offered mapping services to Keweenaw County’Äôs township planning committees. Manninen and Pemberton, who plans to move soon to Dollar Bay, reminisced about childhood trips to Keweenaw County from their home in Painesdale. Keweenaw County Zoning/Planning Commission Chairman James "Reggie" Regis explained that the county’Äôs 1987 Comprehensive Development Plan (which, he said, includes a recreation plan and a land use plan) needs further updating. He noted the recreation plan was updated last year but the land use plan was not. "Land use is really a basis for zoning," Regis said. "The zoning started in 1975 and has been rezoned in different locations ’Ķ The future land use plan is just the direction you would like to see as far as what the zoning is going to do." Regis noted the future land use plan could lead to changing the current zoning. Lori Hauswirth, associate planner for the Western Upper Peninsula Planning District Region (WUPPDR), presented an overview of the planning process and described some of the resources WUPPDR is already providing to the township planning committees and will be able to provide in the near future, such as ownership maps in a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) format that allows shading or overlaying various types of information on the maps. Tax information, infrastructure, transportation network, natural features and trails passing through ownership are a few examples of data the maps could provide. Hauswirth has already met with some of the township planning committees and offered assistance with their data collection and analysis. "We need to make sure we’Äôre starting at the grassroots level and working up to the county level so the county is able to make decisions at the county level based on what you’Äôre interested in at the local level," Hauswirth said. "We need to recognize that everybody has different interests, and we’Äôll work on compromise." Walck introduced several resource persons who were present at the workshop: Patrick Martin, Michigan Tech associate professor of social sciences, who has offered assistance with historical resources of the area; Phil Musser, Keweenaw Industrial Council executive director and Common Ground Core Group member; Kristine Bradof, community programs coordinator for the GEM Center for Environmental Outreach at Michigan Tech; Art Abramson, region manager for International Paper’Äôs forest resources in the Lake States Region; Walt Arnold, I.P./Lake Superior Land Company director of marketing and sales and a member of the Common Ground Resources Group; Keweenaw County Commissioners Don Keith and Frank Stubenrauch; Township Supervisors Ken Korhorn (Grant), Jim Boggio (Eagle Harbor), Bill Luokinen (Allouez), Dudley Martin (Sherman) and Jim Vivian, Jr. (Houghton). Arnold said he is in favor of the Common Ground Initiative for land use planning and believes there is a lot that all groups have in common. "If we work for what we have in common rather than what we don’Äôt have in common, we can all get farther along," Arnold said. "The biggest thing we have in common is we all are based in the Keweenaw ’Ķ Keweenaw is our common ground. We have an interest in the land ’Ķ We all care about the property, even though there are varying interests." Patrick Martin pointed out a fundamental historical difference between the way decisions were made about the land in the past and the present planning process, in which the large landowner I.P./Lake Superior Land Co. comes to the table with local residents, "The big historical difference between this process and the process that operated in the past was that (a certain) priority was implicit," Martin said. "Corporate interests from outside made decisions with the complicity of some government people, and private citizens didn’Äôt have a role, and we hopefully now do." Musser compared the land use plan to a business plan, noting that municipalities are in some ways like a business. "They need to have a business plan in order to get to where they want to go," he said. Bradof, who also attended the December 5 Common Ground workshop in Houghton, said the planning effort has to extend beyond meetings like these workshops. "One thing that came up at the Houghton group is that you really have to go out and try to involve the people that weren’Äôt necessarily going to come to a planning meeting like this, but who have to ultimately approve the results of the process," Bradof said. "Otherwise all the effort will fail." Walck noted participants at the Houghton County Common Ground workshop came up with "a strong sense of place" as a common reason for beginning the effort of regional planning. In Keweenaw County, where planning efforts have already begun now that each township has formed a land use planning committee, Walck took that strong sense of place as a given and provided participants an opportunity to communicate their ideas about who the "stakeholders" are (who has a stake in Keweenaw County’Äôs future), what those stakeholders have in common and what divides them. The group came up with a long list of stakeholders ’Äì from residents, landowners, retirees and tourists to Native Americans, historical societies, environmentalists, children and grandchildren. Walck said one purpose of this exercise was to show why it’Äôs so difficult sometimes to do land use planning because all these diverse groups do not have the same interests. Her next question was, "What interests or issues do all these stakeholders have in common?" The list again was long, including such issues as survival, safety, property rights, love of the Keweenaw, preservation of individual interests, public access, desire for a good quality of life (although different people define this quality differently), preserving the value of the land, economic stability, reliance on laws and aesthetics related to possible physical development. Soper noted that "individual interests" are not really common interests. Said Walck, "We live in a land of individual rights, but we’Äôre trying to find Common Ground (which is a paradox) ’Ķ If you’Äôre going to come up with a land use plan that then drives zoning, it will only be enforced or followed if people have consensus about it." The group then made a list of issues that divide stakeholders, such as: economic growth and development vs. preservation, prejudice, politics, individual interests, visions of the future, being uninformed, government vs. private land ownership, erosion or development of tax base, lack of impact fees, loss of access to land, economic power and generational gap. Doug Sherk, Eagle Harbor Township Land Use Planning Steering Committee co-chairman, noted "what we all have in common is what is here now." Eagle Harbor Township Supervisor Jim Boggio added, "Control is the key word ’Ķ Everybody here wants control of their specific interests." John Griffith of Allouez Township added one way to build consensus is to do the work of the planning process itself. Noted Walck, "You’Äôve got to come to the table with some sense of trust." Art Abramson, region manager for International Paper’Äôs forest resources in the Lake States Region I.P.’Äôs Abramson said, "Sometimes you feel you don’Äôt have enough information sharing that builds trust." He added he and Arnold would be willing to visit all the township groups as resources since they also have a vested interest in what happens with this planning process. Like the Allouez and Sherman Township committees, the three other committees discussed and reported on assets and goals for land use planning. Ken Korhorn, Grant Township supervisor Grant Township Supervisor Ken Korhorn reported his committee’Äôs long list of valuable assets, including many undeveloped areas with natural features to be preserved ’Äì from Devil’Äôs Washtub to Mt. Houghton to Bete Grise North and South. Historic and prehistoric sites, the Montreal River, Keweenaw Point, no billboards and clean water and air were also listed as assets. "We ’Ķ suspected that we might have to prioritize these," Korhorn said. "We want to be flexible, but we don’Äôt want to be real flexible because that’Äôs what makes Grant Township what it is." Houghton Township’Äôs Jim Vivian III noted his committee’Äôs concerns included zoning enforcement across the board, impact fees, identifying and preserving historic districts, signage requirements, protecting visuals, economic development, land access to developments and light pollution. Eagle Harbor Township’Äôs committee listed among the township's most important assets, first, its character ’Äì non-commercial, residential, inclusive, fairly static and composed of four distinct areas: Eagle Harbor village, Gratiot Lake, Lake Medora and shoreline of both Lake Superior and smaller lakes. Related to this character is the desire to control development. Other assets include community, wild lands, lack of pollution and its relationship to growth limits, parks and commercial forest reserves (CFR land), historic sites, sand dunes, wildlife (both flora and fauna), wetlands, gems and minerals and scenic highways. Doug Sherk, left, Eagle Harbor Township Land Use Planning Steering Committee co-chairman, leads the discussion of assets and goals for his township during the small group session at the Keweenaw Common Ground Workshop. Also pictured are Patrick Martin (foreground), Michigan Tech associate professor of social sciences and resource person on historic and prehistoric sites, and committee members Virginia Jamison (center) and Janet Shea. Co-chairman Sherk said the discussion centered on how to protect and what needs protection. "We would like to preserve these assets of our township while at the same time providing for some rationale of growth and development which does not destroy these assets," Sherk said. "Do we want to build for a more diversified population, including more families, more children and more services for those?" Under their goal of preservation and rational growth, the Eagle Harbor group came up with a list of objectives, including investigating historic preservation for specific areas (the village, Central and Copper Falls), pursuing a Scenic Highway designation, developing some sort of process/order through which development can take place, identifying natural areas for preservation and considering means to have diversified rather than stratified communities. Sherk said the Common Ground workshop revealed more agreement among the townships than he had expected. "We hope that the County Board will pick up on this," he said, "and foster the idea of the townships working together." Walck added one way to work together across the townships would be for the County Commissioners and the Zoning/Planning Commission to hold meetings with representatives from the township groups and invite resource people to attend and provide information. County Commissioner Frank Stubenrauch, while expressing his hope for a moratorium on too many meetings, said he was impressed by the participation at the Common Ground Workshop. "I was impressed that so many people are willing to volunteer their time to discuss the issues," Stubenrauch said. "The comments were not all anti-development, but a lot of suggestions were along the lines of appropriate or managed development. We can’Äôt expect to hold development at bay and limit it to south of the bridge. That’Äôs unrealistic. There were a lot of good ideas (and) a lot of awareness among the people as to what’Äôs going on." Gratiot Lake residents Janet and Bud Avery, members of the Association Working Against Keweenaw Exploitation (AWAKE), who have followed Keweenaw County’Äôs planning efforts for over 25 years, participated in the Eagle Harbor Township group discussion at the workshop. Said Janet Avery, "I’Äôm just pleased that they’Äôre finally starting to work on a land use plan and that there are a lot of people interested (and) contributing ideas." Added Bud, "I hope all parties are serious about going ahead with this right away." Township supervisors showed by their presence and participation that they are taking the planning effort seriously. Said Korhorn, "The realization is going to dawn that we’Äôre all in this together. It was very profitable. I’Äôm encouraged. It was good for folks to hear different perspectives." Christa Walck, right, Common Ground Core Group chair and facilitator of the Workshop, and Kristine Bradof, community programs coordinator for the GEM Center for Environmental Outreach at Michigan Tech, roll up the Keweenaw County Zoning Map after a fruitful Keweenaw Common Ground Workshop on land use planning Feb. 5 in the Mohawk School. Walck had a positive reaction to the participation and interest shown at the Workshop. "I thought it was great," she said. "People got very engaged. They worked hard. They discovered that the townships have a lot in common. They have things that they can work on together. It looks like people want to continue this process, working together, and we’Äôre ready to facilitate it." Editor’Äôs note: The Eagle Harbor Township Land Use Planning Steering Committee met on Feb. 6 and discussed some of the goals and objectives identified at the Common Ground workshop. Click here for Committee Co-Chairman George Hite’Äôs informal report on that meeting in his (Almost) Daily Harbor Journal for Feb. 8 on the Eagle Harbor Web. Watch for dates of other township planning committee meetings on the Upcoming Meetings topic of Keweenaw Today’Äôs Commentary. We welcome readers’Äô comments on the Common Ground workshop as well. ’ÄìMichele Anderson February 9, 2001