Is this zoning planning going to be easy?

In all honesty, probably not.

Dec 08, 2024

Monday, December 9th: City Council Meeting 7PM Est (Zoom YouTube) Key agenda topics are the City annual budget and readoption of the prior zoning code.
The Planning Commission held a special meeting on December 5th: They held a public meeting to reapprove the prior zoning.
The City Conducted an ad-hoc survey for zoning and presented it to the planning commission. Unfortunately there were no statistical controls on the survey. Its results were reported in the news. Going forward, surveys should follow a standard of proper design and statistical controls.
Beckett and Raeder have summarized good practices for getting communities to work together. Their video on conducting surveys and town halls provides some helpful tips.

The Details

The City of Harbor Springs will start on the zoning once the new planning commission is in place. Through WLHS efforts 478 voters are more engaged. The 1,700+ subscribers to this news letter are engaged. The benefit of engagement is not to tabulate opinion A vs opinion B, it is to have the people passionate about A or B collaborate so they develop an answer C that solves for A and B. To help facilitate the collaboration we are working to address the following:

ZOOM: Since 60% of our residents are second homeowners, we need a communication strategy that matches the needs of people who care about Harbor Springs. When on ZOOM, the participants tuning in complain of poor audio, not knowing who is speaking from the board/commission table, and not having the “chat” available. The City has told us they will prioritize improvements but think the current zoom solution is sufficient. Please contact the City with your thoughts.
NEW BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS: Many qualified people have tried for years to get on the Planning Commission. The way that you heal the community from such a fracture is to balance the Boards, the meetings, and the Planning Commission structure. Every person added to the boards and commissions should be a new community representative. Many people are dedicated to helping with City government if given the chance.
INVOLVING YOU and THE WLHS: The WLHS went door to door. We had 10-12 Harbor Springs residents who knocked on 900+ doors and spoke to about 600 people about the future of Harbor Springs. Sometimes for a 5 mins, several times for more than an hour. Every Wednesday & Saturday, we hosted a table near the Farmers Market. Across our volunteer organization, there are 30 or so engaged residents/property owners in We Love Harbor Springs who are available now to work with the Planning Commission to come up with a zoning plan. We all want the best for Harbor Springs. Let’s work together and have a 100% unanimous agreement when the zoning plan goes to City Council.
CONVERSATIONAL DIALOGUE FOR ZONING MEETINGS: During the zoning engagement meetings, we ask the three-minute rule be waived unless abused with allowance for some questions from the commission. We also want conversations and interactions between the groups to stay civil, allowing folks to be heard. We can do it.
DIALOGUE: Some of our community are charged with emotions, but cooler heads - less heat, more lights need to prevail. If you all come onto our Website or FaceBook Page please respect the dialogue and the direction of the conversations. The time for wanting one or the other side to win is over. The reason for the YES vote, and for our continued involvement in the zoning decisions for Harbor Springs's future is that after a tremendous amount of research and deep digging into the zoning process, we think the Planning Commission and the City Council missed important opportunities. By majority, the zoning was repealed. The majority consensus is more “Go Slow” than “Change a lot”. Now that the entire community is paying attention, let’s go to work to build a zoning plan that respects the future, protects the past, and preserves the best of Harbor Springs.

The Essay

We think it’s important to find ways to discuss what we all want for our town. One drawback to constructive dialogue is that when we are firmly on one side or the other, we tend to talk mostly, if not exclusively, to people who think the same way we do. It’s human nature. We reinforce each other’s ideas, doubling down on our positions.

There’s little diversity of opinion, and we often only seek out articles and positions that confirm what we already believe. If we don’t happen to like a specific person who says something different from us, now we get charged with emotion, further removing us from the real topics.

What’s the solution? Talk and listen to each other, hold Town Halls, take a neighbor you know who disagrees with you for coffee, or go to a city meeting where you both talk and listen. It’s not easy to navigate change. It takes a will to come together and the energy to persevere. We’re a very small town, but we can find ways to come together.

By Right

One of the biggest drawbacks to the rejected zoning code is allowing “by-right” development. It’s a term we have all heard over the months, but what does it mean?

Technically, it describes the easiest path to development under local jurisdictions' zoning and building codes. “By-right” approvals are also known as ministerial, a common legal term that describes a lack of certain approvals needed by city officials. “By-right” approvals bypass much of the review processes we currently have in place in the old zoning.

The idea is that developers in larger cities who identify building projects can save time and money by having a city expedite the approval process. This is great for a city like Sault St. Marie, with its 14.8-square-mile boundary, which has lots of space to fill with high-density projects, but it's not so great for our tiny 1.3-square-mile footprint. Since involving the neighbors is not required in “by right” zoning, unexpected and costly consequences can happen - and by the time you think “this should be amended” - it’s too late for a change.

Think about this for a minute: Do you really want to make it easier for developers, local or otherwise, to profit from essentially a planned loophole in our zoning code? In all honesty, probably not.

Bigger Downtown

One of the issues we saw in the repealed zoning code is a pathway for expanding the downtown—both horizontally and vertically. While our downtown is thriving, (but could be better) thankfully, unlike so many Michigan towns with empty windows and doors, it is not hard to imagine the opposite scenario.

One goal of developers, and one that is repeated in many state-based recommendations to cities, is to build trendy three-story buildings in a “downtown” area, with retail on the ground floor and housing on the upper two floors. Imagine for a minute even a few three-story buildings adjacent to our current downtown. Can you say these new retail areas and the current retail areas will all thrive? Can you say that expanding our downtown Main Street, Bay Street and Third Street to all “by right” three-story zoning is something that will enhance the character of our town? In all honesty, probably not.

ADUs Carriage Houses

One of the benefits of owning a home on a large lot is the right to improve your property. Especially in a town where many homes were built in an era of few or no cars, there are certainly good reasons to decide to add a garage to the lot. In fact, carriage house originally meant the house where you stored your carriage (but probably not the horses)!

Often these structures had living quarters above, providing housing for extended family or staff. We completely agree we all have the right to improve our properties as we see fit, in accordance with local zoning. If a property owner decides to build or expand a garage, and wants to add living quarters above, or if they want to pursue even adding two-family housing to the lot, the process to apply to the proper board or commission has always been, and is, in place. What is different is that the repealed zoning did not include involving the neighbors.

We champion private citizens’ property rights, but do not support “by-right”, automatic blanket approvals for developers. Do you really believe handing permission to a developer, who might well be not only out-of-town but out-of-state, to build without oversight is best for our town? In all honesty, probably not.

Town Halls

We really believe in talking to each other. Find out by asking; what are your top wishes for the town and your neighborhood? Studies show that empathy allows us to hear and respect another person's views, no matter how different. When we walk a mile in their moccasins, we share their perspective; we see that the perceived ocean between us may just be a small pond.

We recommend a series of Town Halls specific to each zoning district. The issues we need to solve around the downtown differ from how best to use the agricultural lands west of Bluff Gardens. We can’t all be experts in all areas. In Town Hall settings, we can ask questions and listen to our neighbors about specifics of the district, share what we know, and hopefully learn more about what we don’t.

Do you believe the issues of our Ag District are the same as those of our Central Business District? In all honesty, probably not.

Thank you for listening.

P.S. The Town Halls should be facilitated by someone without an agenda. We should use the modern tools in Zoom to allow remote collaboration. Gratefully, we heard on record that members of the planning commission and the city council seemingly support using novel ways to meet and discuss, such as the town hall format.

Now that the entire community has been alerted and is paying attention, let’s go to work to build a zoning plan that respects the future, protects the past and preserves the best of Harbor Springs.

Please share this newsletter with your friends and neighbors.