Stop the zoning ordinance changes

Hayes Township Planning Commission is rewriting the entire zoning ordinance, gutting the protections of the Shoreland Protection Strip that have been in the ordinance for decades. It is also making massive across-the-board rezoning of the residential and agricultural zones in the entire township, changes that will destroy the scenic and beauty of waterfront areas and rural character by allowing smaller parcel subdivisions, threatening in particular Lake Charlevoix.

After the Township spent nearly $20,000 on a consultant to revise the zoning ordinance, the Planning Commissioners suddenly scrapped it, without any public decision at any meeting, in August 2021, just as the Law Boathouse controversy came in to public view. Suddenly the commissioners took the Bay Township zoning ordinance and just copied it and started reviewing that, as though it were Hayes.