Mood:
loudTopic: Owasippes Township Zoning
As seen in The White Lake Beacon - 11/19/06
BY DEBRA CARTE
Beacon staff writer
The trial that could decide the fate of the 4,700-acre Camp Owasippe is being pushed to next August as the Chicago Area Council of the Boy Scouts now has to go back and complete the step it skipped in its rush to get the property rezoned for development.
Blue Lake Township has won a decision from a Muskegon County judge to have the trial that may decide the fate of the 4,700-acre Camp Owasippe rescheduled from next March to next August. The Chicago Area Council of the Boy Scouts sued the township in May over zoning issues at Owasippe, the oldest, continually operating Boy Scout camp in the
country. They want to undo a zoning which limits the property to camp use only and rezone it for residential development.
The trial was originally scheduled to take place next March. It’s now scheduled for Aug. 8, 9, 10, and 14-17 of next year before 14th Circuit Judge William C. Marietti [in Muskegon].
The Chicago Council fought the scheduling change, saying in a response to a motion by Blue Lake Township, that the township was continuing to 'stonewall' the process.
The Chicago Council’s legal offensive is taking three tracks - one in federal court and two in circuit court. The first track, a lawsuit in federal court, has been stayed until there’s an outcome in circuit court.
The second track, which asked for damages from the township, has been dismissed by Marietti. He has essentially said the Chicago Council missed a step by not completing the administrative process at the
township. In other words, they should have gone to the township’s zoning board of appeals (ZBA) to request a variance before coming to court.
James R. Nelson, the attorney representing Blue Lake Township, from the law firm of Nelson, Kreuger & Schrotenboer in Hudsonville, said last week the Chicago Council has submitted an application to the ZBA which will begin now to process it. In its sidestep of the ZBA, Nelson said in court documents that the Chicago Council had ignored Michigan law in its “rush to the courthouse.”
It’s the third track of the Chicago Council’s legal action that will be tried in court in August. The council is claiming the township’s rezoning in 2002 of Owasippe and other properties to FRI, or Forest -
Recreational - Institutional, is discriminatory and unconstitutional. The FRI zoning limits use of the property to camping activity and precludes residential development.
The heavily forested Camp Owasippe, which opened in 1911, celebrated its 95th year of operation this past summer. The camp’s oak-savanna forest is the last of its kind in West Michigan. It’s home to a
variety of endangered and threatened species of wildlife, including the Bald Eagle, Karner Blue Butterfly, Eastern Box Turtle and Massasauga Rattlesnake.
The Chicago Council is claiming the rezoning constitutes an illegal taking of its property. The council needs to overturn the FRI zoning because it has an offer of $19.4 million for Owasippe’s 4,748 acres if the property can be rezoned for residential development. The offer was made in February of last year by Benjamin A. Smith III, chairman and CEO of Macatawa Bank Corp.
The Chicago Council submitted an application to rezone Owasippe in 2004. It wants to divide the property up into lots ranging in size from a quarter acre around the south side of Big Blue Lake, to 10-
acre lots elsewhere on the property.
A public hearing was held this past January where around 400 people, including Scouters opposed to the Chicago Council’s attempt to sell Owasippe, turned out opposing the rezoning. The Blue Lake Township
planning commission and the township board have both turned down the council’s rezoning request. They say their rural township’s fragile infrastructure couldn’t support a residential development which could bring as many as 1,500 homes to the property.
Note: To see the frontpage with photo and caption, click here... http://www.whitelakebeacon.com/frontpage/pageone.pdf
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[ Note: CAC has retained two additional litigators, Douglas Dozeman and Scott Carvo, from the same law firm that Devon Schindler hails from in Grand Rapids to continue to pursue the zoning lawsuit against the Blue Lake Township Community. What price glory? ]
