Cheboygan County Community Development Fails-Big!

This 10,800 sq/ft “Private Storage Building” being built at Exit 313 on I-75 had the site cleared and construction started prior to any site plan review and Building Permit issuance. A written complaint filed directly to Cheboygan County Community Development Director Steve Schnell on September 29, 2016 advised that the footings were complete and walls erected on that date. 

Then, and only then, a Building Permit was finally issued on October 3, 2016. The construction has progressed with trusses ready lift and quoting Cheboygan County Community Development Director Steve Schnell that as of October 6^th; “To date, the owner has not requested any inspections”.

Cheboygan County Community Development Director Steve Schnell had previously ignored this multi-acre site clearance and issued a Building Permit for a 10,800 sq/ft “Private Storage Building” on October 3rd.  Steve Schnell did this with the knowledge and complicity that his Cheboygan County Community Development staff had a pending application for a “Special Use Permit” for a 10,800 sq/ft Indoor Commercial Storage commercial outdoor storage and display area utilizing the same building for commercial use. Steve Schnell allowed this building as a “private storage building” prior to a legally required Public Hearing scheduled for October 19, 2016.  

After years of growing unrest, several Cheboygan County Planning Commission members in attendance at the October 5, 2016 P & Z hearing spoke out publicly airing their frustrations with several issues. Cheboygan County Community Development Director Steve Schnell has demonstrated an unwillingness to enforce the laws set down in Ordinance #200, the Cheboygan County Planning and Zoning Ordinance.

Please take a few minutes to listen to the frustration expressed by these dedicated appointed Planning and Zoning Commission members who work to serve Cheboygan County for only nominal compensation. 

Cheboygan County P & Z Commission Voices Frustrations

Winning the Tuscarora Township Property Tax Lottery

Our great country was born of a revolution against the King of England and unfair taxation. We lost the King but taxation remains a necessary part of our democracy. We deserve and usually enjoy some fairness in our taxes. When we pay gas tax at the pump, income taxes, or sales taxes on goods or a vehicle we know what tax rate we are going to pay and others are also paying a similar share.

I did not include property taxes among those mentioned because so many question the fairness of property taxes. All of us who own property pay taxes expressed as a millage based on each $1,000 of taxable value. Your assessment card and tax bill also shows a figure identified as State Equalized Value (SEV). That figure should represent about 50% of your property’s market or current sales value. Taxable value may increase by the amount of inflation while the SEV may go up or down supposedly tracking real market sales. That is the theory. The real world practice varies wildly and the assessor like a King determines fairness. The issues created by the need for the state to maximize all property taxes to fund our government weighed against some attempt to maintain fairness has created a complex system ripe for error and abuse.

In retail, there is an expression called shrinkage. It is the reduction in the profit of a business due to wastage or theft. That shrinkage means higher prices for all of us. We pay for each theft or loss that occurs. If you are not yelling, “Stop thief” as someone runs out of the store with a big screen TV, you are aiding the thief while costing yourself money.

Property taxes also have a shrinkage factor created by errors in fact and sometimes from biases, favoritism, or even fraud resulting from the archaic practice of employing elected officials as assessors. If your neighbor is receiving a special deal on property taxes, we are all subsidizing that gift from the assessor. 

Is someone as guilty as the thief running from the store? Are the property owner and assessor equally guilty? I ask these questions because some jurisdictions, Tuscarora Township being one in particular, has had years of allegations of special property tax deals cut for the good old boys by Supervisor/Assessor Mike Ridley.

Is there any truth to the whispered rumors? A couple bought a lot in a golf course development north of Indian River. The SEV of the vacant lot had been $35,000 and the taxable value was $162.  The Tuscarora Assessor then lowered the SEV to $22,500 and raised the taxable value to $22,500. Did I mention the purchaser had a custom home built on the lot with an occupancy permit issued in September 2009? The Cheboygan County Building Safety department provided the public record of the “Assessor’s Copy of Building Permit”. The total Building Permit Valuation was $328,000. Did the SEV, supposedly 50% of the market value, increase for 2010?  Not in this fairy tale. The SEV and taxable value then remained at $22,500 for 2010, 2011, and 2012. In 2013, those numbers started to depreciate and the SEV and taxable value for 2016 is now only $15,600.  

When these taxpayers, and I use the term reluctantly, received their annual assessment card for 2016 did they run out and buy a lottery ticket? They are paying 2016 property taxes on a taxable value of $15,600. Can they honestly think their custom built home is only worth double that $15,600 SEV, about $31,000? 

Did both they and Tuscarora Township Supervisor/Assessor Mike Ridley knowingly ignore the small print that says:”State Equalized Value must approximate 50% of the market value”? 

That couple has been winning the property tax lottery every year since 2010. Every other Tuscarora Township property owner for the past 6 years is paying for that fraud or error. We deserve justice. Will the State Tax Commission correct this fraud or error?

Tuscarora DDA Ignores Prime Directive-Engages Stupid

The Tuscarora Township DDA is proving that stupidity is an infinite resource. The law empowering DDAs states in part that a DDA corrects and prevents deterioration in business districts; encourages historic preservation; and promotes the economic growth of the district. DDAs capture and spend tax dollars that would otherwise go to schools, libraries, and county services. Unlike the Cheboygan DDA, the Tuscarora DDA encompasses a large area; both sides of old M-27 from one end of the township to the other and east on M-68 to the industrial park.  

Tuscarora’s Safe Routes to School, the asphalt sidewalk that parallels Straits Hwy from the schools to Indian River’s downtown is this DDA’s crowning achievement. I agree it is more practical than a pedestrian bridge with elevators although it also has a bridge. Best to ignore the dangerous cross-walk and pedestrian island sandwiched into a small area that has more than six commercial entrances with center turn lanes including Burt Lake State Park. This DDA project took more years than I can remember, 8 or 9, and cost $964,455.00.  No, that decimal is in the right place. A million dollars give or take is still a million dollars spent. Grants or captured taxes, the dollars all came from us. To put that amount in perspective, the repaving of more than two miles of S Straits highway last fall, pavement, shoulders, and some new guardrail cost $592,000.00 and took only a few months. 

Are the well meaning citizens who volunteer in these appointed DDA positions responsible? Or is it Tuscarora Supervisor Ridley; the steady presence and only elected official on the DDA Board who under DDA law is the CEO? Shouldn’t Supervisor Ridley be providing guidance to these lay-people who volunteer their time? Before the million dollar sidewalk was done, Supervisor Ridley and the DDA turned their attention to the Indian River “Streetscape” and another DDA idea; back-in-angle parking.

The whole issue of back-in-angle parking on S Straits Highway in Indian River can be summed up with one single word: stupid. Back in parking has been used successfully for years where there is a proven need to add parking spaces in a limited area.  The best use has been side streets where there is little through traffic, often with dedicated bike lanes, and vehicles typically parked all day or overnight.

It is a worst practice example where the majority of traffic is through traffic and there is a steady turn-over of parking spaces. The back-in parking in front of the Chamber office and new trailhead parking lot resulted in a loss of more than a dozen parking spaces. It also left that block with narrower travel lanes, inadequate ADA access, and a cross-walk that will eliminate more parking spaces in front of the Dairy Mart.  RV’s or vehicles pulling trailers can park somewhere else, maybe the next town down the road. As you read this, the Tuscarora DDA is fast-tracking an application to MDOT hoping to secure a TAP Grant to build out the length of Indian River’s main street with at least three more back-in parking pods. Supervisor Ridley has also apparently been shopping privately for more USDA loans/grants from that Federal body that is now the patron saint of lost municipal causes. 

Last year, as the Indian River Trailhead project was wrapping up with the pavilion and smaller off-street parking lot, the DDA thought it would be a great idea to spend about $90,000 out of your pocket so everyone could see how great back-in angle parking really is and showcase it with the newly completed Trail Head. That rush-rush decision instead became an ongoing embarrassment that delivered numerous faults including a northbound travel lane squeezed to less than 10 feet. Further work on the rest of the Streetscape plan now requires CCRC Board approval again as they are the “owners” of the road and must endorse the final design seeking a MDOT TAP Grant. 

At the February 18, 2016 CCRC Board Meeting, during public comment, I personally asked the CCRC Board not to fall into the trap again of partially funding more design work. As I sat down Tuscarora Supervisor/DDA CEO Mike Ridley, a scheduled speaker at the CCRC meeting stood and started his pitch. He implored the CCRC to donate half the proposed design cost of $141,950; another no bid contract employing the same engineering firm that created the existing mess.  The balance of the project, still in the design stage, currently has an estimated cost as high as $980,000. That does not include the $141,950 design costs. All of these projections may go over budget with Supervisor Ridley’s stated mantra: “plan for the worse and hope for the best”.

We certainly got the worst from the first round of DDA spending. After years of dithering and doing nothing, the Tuscarora DDA now may be getting politically pressured to hurry up and get this Streetscape project off the paper. Did I say off paper? A request to CCRC Manager Brent Shank for the plans, as designed or as built, for the one small section already done was answered promptly and frankly: “Attached is a copy of the plan that was included with the permit application. We have not received a copy of an ‘as built’ plan.  The centerline was moved to be 11 feet from the where the concrete curb meets the asphalt.” 

Although a TAP Grant application without any CCRC endorsement has been submitted to MDOT, there still have not been public hearings by the DDA or any effort to gain uncensored and unbiased input from business owners and those who frequent those businesses. As I wrote in the last installment, the Cheboygan County Road Commission Board is now our last line of defense against additional impractical designs. James Johnson, David Brown, Robert Chadwick, Clarence O’Connor, and Kenneth Paquet all serve as elected officials. The CCRC Board listened to Supervisor Ridley’s new plea for a 50% donation for another round of designing that will cost as much as $141,950. The CCRC Board took the position they’ll not be fooled again and declined the request. The CCRC Board then passed a motion to schedule a Public Hearing at 6:30PM on June 2, 2016 in to allow people to offer comments on the use of and need for back-in angle parking in Indian River. These five people know they answer to the people who elected them. We should all thank them for that. The final outcome may be determined by how many of us come out on June 2, 2016 to voice an opinion.

Who's the Queen for Valentine's Day? Click the Link Below

You're the Queen-NO, You're the Queen

Heritage Cove Farm-Cheboygan County P & Z Failed

More than a hundred year round and seasonal Cheboygan County residents participated in the recent Planning Commission hearings as Heritage Cove Farm sought a Special Use Permit.  The applicants desired to operate a residential therapeutic treatment facility for the mentally ill on 33 acres on Grandview Beach. Many vocally opposed the proposal and specifically the location. For many it was clearly their first exposure to Master Plans, Zoning Districts, and Michigan’s Planning and Enabling Act. It is not a democratic or majority rules process and some were not pleased with the outcome. 

Anyone who is interested in creating a better future for Cheboygan County should seize this opportunity do some Monday morning quarterbacking and work toward changes to better serve your future needs. We all walk a fine line between defending our private property rights while avoiding a negative impact on our neighbors’ rights.  A basic fault with the majority of current zoning laws is that they define “permissive” uses rather than prohibited uses. Any uses that were not foreseen by the authors of the law then require a Special Use Permit and sometimes rezoning. Many of the problems in the Heritage Cove application resulted from undefined or poorly defined terms and a land use that the authors of Ordinance #200 had never envisioned. Solar farms, data centers, and fulfillment centers are just three of an infinite number of fast growing commercial uses of property never foreseen or addressed by Ordinance #200. 

I’ve spoken with both proponents and opponents of the Heritage Cove Farm and am sympathetic to both. Some Heritage Cove opponents correctly stated that both the Tuscarora and Cheboygan County Master Plans identified the subject property as retaining the existing zoning.  P & Z staff stated that Master Plans are forward thinking documents envisioning future zoning districts; not specific uses. The Heritage Cove approval required no rezoning. Less than one year after the current County Master Plan was adopted, the Meijers’ store Special Use application required rezoning and that received rubber stamp approval. So much for 20 year plans. 

Grandview Beach residents discovered they were not protected within Cheboygan’s most restrictive single family residential zoning. Most of their properties are instead in the more permissive zoning of Lake & Stream. Cheboygan has numerous established lakeshore communities. They may deserve some form of status quo protection simply because they are some of our larger properly tax generators.

Many of lakeshore owners are already organized as associations to promote their special interests. There are options available to restrict uses that could negatively impact their neighborhoods and property values. Most of us are familiar with deed restrictions and covenants in planned or platted developments. An association that has an elected board could democratically define community boundaries and then enact and record protective deed restrictions on all the properties within those boundaries. These deed restrictions can protect against negative impacts and convey with the property if it is sold. The question then is whether the association members can all agree on what defines a negative impact? Is it only a use like Heritage Cove? Or is it a commercial use; bed & breakfasts, restaurants, marinas, weekly, weekend, or cottage rentals by the day, pole barns, or even tear-downs of historic cottages and consolidating lots to build a McMansion?  Indian Woods Trail and Woodside already have some covenants in place. Many other long established west Mullett lakeshore neighborhoods, with numerous non-conforming uses, may find themselves beyond the point where any deed restriction can effectively protect against negative impacts. 

A less desirable option involves property owners, their local township Board, and Cheboygan County Planning and Zoning and Commissioners. A few years ago Cheboygan County Planning & Zoning had amended Ordinance #200 allowing anyone to build a "private storage building", ie: pole barns, in residential neighborhoods as a primary use. No house, no residents, no kids in school. Just a big tin shed sitting next to your $150,000 house. This proved to b a bad move. After five stand alone pole barns were built on one street in Topinabee, numerous Topinabee residents proposed a more restrictive overlay. The overlay would restrict stand-alone pole barns as a primary use in existing single family residential neighborhoods in Topinabee.

Cheboygan County P & Z staff stated it was open to enacting an over-lay with the support and endorsement of the Mullett Township Board. About 40 residents and owners signed petitions asking for this action. Mullett Township Supervisor MaryAnne Gale felt it stepped on the rights of private property owners. The entire Mullett Board ignored 40 taxpayers and bowed to the Supervisor. A lesson learned? If you want it done right, do it yourself.