Why are we in the same hurry?

It’s time for residents to speak up for themselves

Jan 12, 2025

A dramatic winter scene depicting a small-town planning commission meeting happening in secrecy. The setting is a snow-covered Harbor Springs with frosty windows on a small building labeled 'Town Hall - Harbor Springs,' where dim light glows inside, contrasting with the dark and snowy outdoors. A small group of shadowy figures is shown around a table, with stacks of papers and zoning maps, while outside, the community's houses and quiet streets are blanketed in snow, highlighting the isolation of the meeting. The atmosphere is eerie and tense, symbolizing decisions being made without broader community involvement. Include a faint view of the iconic Little Traverse Bay in the background under a cold, cloudy sky.

Based on our canvassing efforts during the summer and fall, the election, and City Hall Meetings, the majority of Harbor Springs shows little or no urgency or an interest in changing the existing zoning.
The Planning Commission is proceeding with a new zoning draft, with or without your input. Instead of assuring a quorum of stakeholder interest, they will likely make decisions based on those who attend town hall and PC meetings.
The Planning Commission has agreed to hold town halls, but in January when 62% of property owners are not around. The City will change your property rights if you do not attend in person or by Zoom.
The City remains unwilling to communicate its plans by postal mail, relying instead on social messaging and posting of notices around town.
There are 1,500 property owners, 478 voters who repealed zoning, and 1000s of people who care about preserving Harbor Springs. Zoning impacts each of our homes uniquely. WLHS does not represent a single opinion. Nor does the Planning Commission.
It is time the City evaluated its communication on results rather than effort. If 62% of homes are non-resident, 62% of people should voice their views on the zoning. If the median is age 62, half of survey results should come from people over the age of 62.
Based on the election, the community's priority is to change little. Nonetheless, the Planning Commission's priority appears to be to eliminate zoning districts, increase housing density, facilitate new construction, and expand the business district.
While this appears to be a debate of Option A: Preserve vs Option B: Growth, WLHS believes there is an Option C. We can preserve what is best about Harbor Springs and prepare it for the future if someone on the Planning Commission provides leadership that entices the community to engage. Rushed schedules will once again cast askew the 1,500 property owners, focusing instead on the planning commission’s desire for growth.
If the Planning Commission’s communication plan and demeanor fail to engage the community stakeholders, any new zoning will fail again. This time, it will fail at City Council with a simple property owner protest petition—which only requires 20% of the property owners and the support of two council members to block zoning changes.

Take Action

If you like the zoning as it is and do not want a change, email or write the City Zoning Office (assessor@cityofharborsprings.com) to make your point known.
If you miss a meeting, replays are available on YouTube
Discuss your concerns on our Facebook group and City Facebook group
Sign up for City Notices by email: Link This is one of the few reliable ways to learn about the ever-changing schedule.

The Details

After attending the Planning Commission meeting on January 9, one public comment got us thinking about public participation in our city meetings.

Public comments dating back to last December have been brought to the Planning Commission, asking why we need to rewrite the zoning code now that it has been repealed. Pause for a moment and ask, do a majority of property owners or voters believe:

We need to increase the housing density?
The median age in Harbor Springs needs to change from 62 to 40?
We need a larger Central Business District?
We should remove Planning Commission and neighborhood oversight?
The community should prioritize the needs of the downtown businesses over our property rights?

We hope to demonstrate that most people care about this and ask the community to speak up to change the zoning if necessary. We want to discuss actual Harbor Springs problems with authentic solutions and results. Some may be solved by incentives outside of zoning.

At the January 9 Planning Commission meeting, a citizen asked again outright: “Why do we need a new zoning code?” As with every public comment, the chairman thanked him, and then—well, then nothing.

Even though the question of why we don’t just stick with the existing code has been raised, the commission has never addressed or answered it. Let’s now ask again.

The three-minute public comments by audience members are duly noted, appear in the next meeting minutes as required by rule, are rubber-stamped and approved. The commission never discusses or considers them openly while the audience is in attendance. The public and the commission do not have the opportunity to interact at the time of the comment. In many ways, it’s bureaucratic theatre passing as public involvement.

Bringing this process back to the ‘new’ zoning code, there isn’t a new zoning code. It was repealed. Yet here we are, rushing back down the road to writing a new zoning code, driven by the Planning Commission chairman, who has actively steered not only the conversation but the literal commission agenda towards rewriting the code, and speedily at that.

How did we get here once again?

City Code & Zoning Code Links

Officially called: ‘2005 Edition’. The City Code was adopted November 7, 2005 and most recently amended in February of 2022, with additional amendments below not yet incorporated into the final document. City Ordinances adopted by City Council will be included in the forthcoming amended version of both Codes. Zoning Code As Amended Through February 7, 2022. https://www.cityofharborsprings.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2022.02.08-Zoning-Code-As-Amended-Through-February-7-2022-00076714xCE72E.pdf

Communication

We ask that the Planning Commission develop a clear communication strategy that ensures representative involvement by all the stakeholders. They should establish a dedicated webpage for this district by district zoning communication on the date, time, and place of meetings.

The success of anything is dependent on participation with questions and opinions. We are glad half of the meetings will be held elsewhere in city-wide locations, yet as of now, the meetings will not be simulcast on Zoom. Instead, we suggest the organizers run each meeting from their laptops using Zoom - thus allowing each listening session and meeting to be easy to access from afar, shared, recorded, and transparent for commissioners and the community.

The Zoom technology in the City Hall meeting room has not yet been upgraded. Chat or Transcription has not been enabled on the City (the meeting host) side to allow reading the discussions in real-time, which is especially helpful if you are hard of hearing or have a poor speaker. The new microphones make a considerable difference but listeners on Zoom still have no way of knowing which commissioner is speaking because the protocol is to not introduce themselves before commenting. Let’s fix this before any future meetings.

The New Zoning Calendar

On January 9 at the Planning Commission meeting, the chairman put forth his January meeting schedule (the first in his three-month ‘review process’) for the townspeople to ‘come together’ to discuss what changes we can all agree on making. The fact that it is winter, many residents and voters are out-of-town, plus the City does not have the email addresses of all its residents, all limit citizen input (as has been pointed out in previous public comments both in person and on Zoom).

As for the calendar, this very front-facing, multi-location (many of which may not be recorded or Zoomed), multi-date (we were thinking two a month, not two or three a week), all-but-immediately-beginning community engagement blitz (the first one would be three working days away from its’ release) is definitely pro-active.

Looking closer, it is far beyond pro-active. This ‘Town Hall’ schedule (which a citizen attending the meeting on the 9th called “smushed”) is months longer than the chairman originally proposed. If he had succeeded in his original schedule, all reviews would have been completed at the end of January.

The planning commission should ask non-residents how to capture non-resident property owner input effectively.

Conflict of Interest

The broader community and WLHS previously raised the question of conflict of interest regarding commission members and their decisions regarding the building of ‘affordable’ housing through various local organizations. We have yet to get all the answers to our questions. Since December, we’ve said we feel the rush towards a new code is flawed.

Knowing that conflicts of interest lead to bad judgment and flawed decisions, we are concerned. Judging by the pushback from both commission members and the public at the January 9 meeting and questions on the lightning-speed timetable of the ‘open meetings’ campaign, the conflict-of-interest question remains.

Are we rushing to understand stakeholders' needs or speeding up development and new housing?

Why are we Rewriting the Code?

Every time the question comes up, “Why are we rewriting this code now?” the answer is that we have a timetable to begin the review to rewrite the code. It’s classic circular logic. The commissioner is trying to begin with what he wants to end with. Are we expected to accept that endpoint (rewriting the code) as an act of faith?

We suggest tabling the production of a new code to overlap the review of the Master Plan. Although the Master Plan does not legally bind the code, they work hand-in-hand. We would like to see our community take ample time to review both together over the next two years. We can start with Town Halls and Listening Sessions without fast-paced scheduling. Answering questions like what can make Harbor Springs a better home for all of us!

Audience Comment Delivered to the Planning Commissioners

by Bing Howenstein, Harbor Springs voter and generational resident

We, the residents of Harbor Springs, sent a clear message in November by voting to repeal the proposed zoning changes. Yet, here we are again, facing another rezoning effort.

I want to thank City Council members, voters, and community advocates for your dedication to this issue. That said, it’s clear from community discussions that many of us still don’t understand why these zoning changes are necessary in the first place.

I stand here tonight to ask the Council directly a question many want to ask you: Why does the zoning need to change?

Before moving forward on repeating this process, the Council must clearly and transparently answer these fundamental questions:

What is the goal of these changes?
What issues are these changes trying to address?
What data supports their necessity?
Lastly, Is the City required to restart this process, or is it a voluntary action?

Some I have spoken with believe these changes are tied to a goal of our city becoming a Redevelopment Ready Community (RRC), yet most do not understand what this designation entails or how it will impact Harbor Springs’ unique charm. If becoming an RRC is truly necessary, the Council must explain why, detailing both the benefits and risks.

What is clear is that we all care deeply about our town. The secret of our magical town of Harbor Springs is out; and accordingly it will continue to grow. But Our City requires thoughtful growth that preserves Harbor Springs' unique character and is guided by its residents, and not by external pressures.

Before scheduling meetings with the public and restarting the process, and in the spirit of transparency and trust, I ask that you please provide the people a clear and well defined purpose for this initiative. Further, I ask that you clarify the need and or obligation that directs the city to use its resources to repeat this zoning change process.

In closing, I ask that my comments and this formal request be reflected in tonight’s Planning Committee meeting minutes. Thank you.