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Resource Page>Land Use Concept Plan
Charlevoix Area Smart Growth Initiative Land Use Concept Plan StrategyLAND USE DESCRIPTIONSClick on the links below to read our interpretation of the land use intent of the Concept Plan Strategy. These interpretations are represented on the Composite Planning Map. ( Click here to download a PDF version of this document.)
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| Urban Service Area (USA) |
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The Urban Service Area is that area, which is intended to be serviced by public water and sewer over the next 20 years by a municipality providing such services to allow for higher densities, high efficiency, and less sprawl. This area is intended to contrast sharply with the very low-density development intended for areas outside the boundary.
Within the USA boundary, a variety of urban housing is intended ranging from singlefamily lots to densities exceeding 15 units per acre including attached single-family, townhouse, apartment, assisted living, and mixed-use housing. In some cases, public utilities are intended to stimulate urban housing and economic development. In others, such as on the north shore of Lake Charlevoix, south of Quarterline Road, they are intended only to correct existing and potential environmental problems, not to stimulate urban growth.
The USA is purposely configured to embrace virtually all future economic development activity including places to work and places to shop. The USA is not intended to service the Hamlets because extensions from Charlevoix into rural territory will stimulate undesired growth.
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A village is larger than a hamlet, but is compact and pedestrian friendly with mixed uses, including shopping for its residents, housing, places of employment, and meeting and civic places including parks. It has a compact nucleus, a well-defined edge, and is surrounded by open space or agriculture. It is served by public infrastructure.
The Cemex property, which is within the USA, is the only proposed "Village" within the planning area. While the property may not be developed for an alternative use for many years, it is intended to be a mixed-use community that includes a Village Center and parkland that focuses on a new public lake, marina, bay, or harbor plus a variety of complementary and supportive uses including affordable housing. The scale and appearance of buildings must be in character with the small town character of the region and should not be allowed to become another Bay Harbor that is primarily for upper income people where the lakeshore is consumed by individual private ownerships. This Village is intended to accommodate an open space waterfront with full public access, a public walkway around the inner bay, and small shops on the bay.
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The elements of three Hamlets already exist at Bay Shore, Ironton, and to some extent, Norwood. By definition, Hamlets are a compact cluster of residential buildings in a rural/historical setting, located at a crossroads, and are accompanied by such things as a tavern, convenience store, restaurant, and meeting or civic spaces. While all of these components do not now exist in any of the identified Hamlets, it is the intent to foster compact development in the vicinity of these centers rather than have it occur in strip fashion along the region's major roads. The USA is not intended to extend to these Hamlets to avoid accompanying sprawl development.
The Hamlets are intended to have uses that generate relatively low levels of wastewater including places to work, shop, and live. They are intended to be served, if necessary, by small self-contained alternative or community systems that strengthen the concept of compact development rather than create long corridors of linear development between urban centers because the sewer is available.
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| Shoreline Environment Areas |
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Most of the area designated as Shoreline Environment is already developed or is not likely to be used for agricultural purposes over the next 20 years. However, there are still some larger undeveloped acreages adjacent to water bodies. These are areas where the protection of the shoreline and water quality is especially important. These areas overlay or are otherwise interspersed with sensitive natural resource areas including inland lakes, streams, wetlands, and woodland habitat.
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| Rural Character Preservation Areas. |
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Many important factors need to be considered if the rural character of the region is to be maintained. Landscapes that require special attention for protection, enhancement, and/or preservation include wetlands, forests, steep slopes, rivers and streams, important wildlife habitat, and lakeshores, particularly where they are not fragmented and have a high degree of visibility. The antithesis are landscapes that have the greatest development potential including lands that are privately owned, are accessible and have road frontage, are generally open, have acceptable soils for development and on-site utilities, and have rolling to flat topography. Areas in between are transition areas where development is situational depending on the presence of sensitive natural resources.
Furthermore, nonagricultural development needs to occur where it will not be readily visible and will not interfere with or be affected by agricultural activities. The intent is to maintain the rural "appearance" of the countryside while allowing reasonable development to occur in locations that are not suitable for farming and do not change the rural character of the area. The preservation of rural character depends on identifying and protecting the features that define the countryside while making non-farm development essentially invisible to the public.
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Outside of the USA and hamlets the maintenance of lands having prime and important agricultural soils, in suitably sized parcels, for agricultural use, either now or in the future, is a priority. Within these areas, farmers are intended to have opportunities to use their land in ways that produce an economic return while continuing to avoiding development that destroys the ability to farm the land in perpetuity.
This is one of the most important components of maintaining the rural character and feel of the planning area. The intent is to have minimum parcels in areas of prime and important agricultural soils as small as 20, and perhaps even 40, acres in size while providing opportunities for cluster and conservation housing, of significantly greater density, in areas that are unsuitable for agricultural uses. Unproductive agricultural soils and some woodlands are appropriate locations for non-farm dwellings provided they do not interfere with the farming operations and thus cause the demise of farming. Development of ridge tops, non-regulated wetlands, steep slopes and critical wildlife habitat destroys the look and feel of the natural rural landscape.
The character of land use in these areas is one of the most important components of maintaining the rural feel, and appeal of the planning area.
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| Rural Roadside Character Preservation |
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Roadsides within Rural Character Preservation areas, and outside of the Urban Service area, are where the rural character is most readily visible and alterations to the landscape are most readily recognizable. Within these areas, the basic rural character of wooded and agricultural edges must be maintained by keeping housing from occupying open farm fields, requiring large setbacks, preserving wooded roadside edges and/or requiring landscaping and screening, and clustering such housing in or at the edge of woodlands.
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These areas correlate with stream, wetland, woodland, and steep slope corridors. They are continuously connected systems from one property to another that are essential to the health of the natural landscape. The intent is to protect the natural water quality of stream/wetland/lake corridors by establishing ample setbacks and preserving native vegetation and animal habitat while providing incentives to landowners to do the right things.
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There are places in the region where priceless views to natural resources exist that should not be preempted by private development. These include road ends, views to the shoreline from a lake, and other views that define the countryside as a rural place. While not all can be preserved for public enjoyment, the most important and defining views need to be identified and protected for the sake of posterity. Future generations should be able to enjoy the views that define this place as they exist today or may be enhanced, or the character of place will be changed forever.
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| Shoreline Protection Areas |
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Shoreline protection is necessary to protect the quality of the Lakes' water and where practical and feasible, land should be acquired or protected for public use by purchase or conservation easements. Since much of the region's riparian lands are already occupied by homes, the intent is to protect lake and stream water quality and appearance by the employment of storm water Best Management Practices, the establishment of buffers, and the protection of natural views to and from the shoreline.
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| Gateways/Roadside Restoration Areas |
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Gateways/Roadside Restoration Areas. Located within the Urban Service Area, roads and highways that serve as entrances and/or gateways to and through the planning area are likely to be developed for commercial purposes and are the most vulnerable of all locations because development can easily destroy the small town character of a place. What is typical in such areas are parking lots, traffic conflicts, formula architecture, sign "clutter", and stand-alone, space consuming, uses that have no relationship to any other use or uses. These are the locations that people often remember most, not because they are physically and historically attractive, but because they are incongruent with the style and character of the larger community.
The intent is to regulate the location and appearance of buildings, parking, access, and landscaping in these locations to make them consistent with the historical rural small town character of the Charlevoix Area. The height, scale, size, and style of buildings will be important as will the relationship of buildings to the street, parking areas, and buildings on adjacent sites. Also important will be the degree to which gateways are identified and designed to create a sense of arrival and recognition for the place being entered.
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| Park Land And Open Space |
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Park Land And Open Space. Equally important with the preservation of agriculture as a use, which protects the rural character of the planning area is the preservation of minimally developed lakeshore property available for public use. This is particularly true along Lake Michigan. Such preservation dates back to the mid eighteen hundreds with the acquisition of Michigan Beach within the City of Charlevoix. Other important acquisitions have included Mt McSauba, Fisherman's Island State Park, North Point, and various State and conservancy owned parcels.
The Big Rock property in Hayes Township, the largest remaining parcel of shoreline property on Lake Michigan in the planning area, has the size and location to warrant consideration to be acquired, or protected by conservation easements, to assure public use in perpetuity. While awaiting the removal of the spent nuclear fuel to a national permanent holding site, the time should be used to develop a strategy for the ultimate preservation of this property.
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The act of development means change. Change usually, at least for some of the population, means the loss of things of value. The act of developing land, for example, is often accompanied with the loss of open space which is valued by a part of the populace simply because it is open space. Frequently, as a community develops it develops facilities which are designed, or by their nature, attempt to maintain a balance between that which is gained and that which is lost. Developing an area wide non-motorized trail system is one such facility. It provides a safe way for users to move about, recreate, and gain access to those resources, which remain.
An area-wide trail system is proposed to continue to be developed over time as road construction ensues or as trail development initiatives are pursued. Ideally, as a component of a Traverse City to Mackinaw City Trail, a segment of which already exists between Charlevoix and Petoskey, a trail would be developed from Norwood to Charlevoix through Fisherman's Island State Park up to Clipperview Road and then within the US-31 right-of-way. Major trails are also proposed to be developed within the US-3 1, M-66, Boyne City Road, and Ferry Road corridors, parts of which will serve as the Lake Charlevoix loop trail.
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This page last updated on 2/7/2005.
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