Development Issues Debated in Village
Mackinaw City Wants To Protect Waterfront Views
By Paul Gingras

After months of deliberation, the Mackinaw City Planning Commission is poised to suggest amending a village ordinance to keep some waterfront visible in the B2 district along South Huron Avenue. The amount of space to remain open between buildings, and how to calculate it as developments are proposed, was debated at the Thursday, March 13, planning commission meeting.

The B2 district includes about 1.5 miles of waterfront, from the state dock to the village limit, an area where large hotels have been built in recent years. Commissioners began discussing a limit to building lengths there and protecting water views between them during master plan meetings about 1.5 years ago.

The village ordinance does not specify a maximum building length, and calls for a standard 10 foot setback no matter what size parcel a landowner develops.

The number of parking spaces available on a parcel determines how many rooms a hotel can have, Village Manager Jeff Lawson pointed out. The village requires 1.1 parking spaces for every room in a hotel. The planning commission is considering allowing developers one parking spot per room, if they work with the village to maximize open space between buildings, Mr. Lawson said.

The planning commission is considering limiting building lengths to 250 feet and requiring a percentage of open space based on the size of each parcel. At the meeting, the planning commission explored the impact of requiring 10%, 15%, or 20% setbacks. They used drawings of a hypothetical, four-story motel to visually depict how the setbacks would affect room numbers.

Requiring a 10% setback on a 300-foot parcel (30 feet of setback) would mean a hotel owner would have to leave 15 feet of open space on each side of a building. Requiring 15% would call for 22.5 feet on each side. Requiring 20% would require 30 feet.

As an incentive to developers to work with the village to create the largest areas of open space possible between buildings, the planning commission is considering allowing landowners to stagger the amount of space on each side.

If required to provide 30 feet of open space, for example, a hotel owner could have a 10-foot setback on one side and a 20-foot setback on the other, with the village deciding which side, based on how much space an adjoining parcel has open. Doing so would enable the village to add setbacks together and create large spaces between buildings, Mr. Lawson explained.

As a reward, landowners could have one parking space per hotel room, versus 1.1, enabling them to build more hotel rooms and increase profits, he added.

Hotel owner Enzo Lieghio and hotel builder Chris Brown challenged the planning commission on several points.

The model hotel drawing was not made to scale, Mr. Lieghio said. Comparing the planning commission's hypothetical drawings to existing businesses in town, Mr. Lieghio insisted that the documents depicted far more rooms than the building could contain, and it could not include realistically-sized amenities.

Mr. Lawson countered that The Architect Forum, which supplied the drawings, guaranteed that they included ample room for hotel rooms and amenities such as breakfast rooms and pools.

Interior design, including the sizes of such rooms, is up to the developer, commissioners noted.

"I think you have to look at it as if it was an actual property . . . and not create fictitious pictures with no dimensions that make any sense whatsoever," Mr. Lieghio said. "I guess I am concerned because if you guys are going off this information, and it is faulty information, what are you basing your opinion on?"

"I asked [Mr. Lawson] specifically, Can you have The Architect Forum double check the mathematics? I do not want to find out down the road, two months or two years, that [commissioners] judgments were made on inaccurate data," said Robert Most, chair of the planning commission.

The architects assured the village that the drawings were made correctly, Mr. Lawson told The St. Ignace News.

Mr. Brown said that the deliberations of the planning commission were made without any reference to the village master plan, and that the revised plan is being developed around decisions such as limiting development on B2. The master plan should be in place first and zoning changes made later, he said.

Master plans outline a vision as to how a community wants to be developed and are used to help develop zoning regulations.

The old master plan, dating to 1999, includes general statements about the community's desire for open space between buildings and an open view of the Straits of Mackinac, Mr. Lawson said.

The changes under consideration would devalue properties and cause the village tax base to be reduced significantly, Mr. Brown said.

New requirements will not affect existing hotels on B2 unless they are altered or rebuilt, Mr. Most said, and proposed zoning changes will make the village more attractive to tourists. Theoretically, they would then be willing to pay more for rooms, he added.

Mr. Most objected to the threat of a reduced tax base being used to influence the commissioners.

Commissioner and village council member Jeff Hingston, while pointing out that one or two opinions should not be allowed to be the driving force behind commission decisions, said, "I appreciate the fact that we have a property owner from [the B2] district here sharing his concerns, and were we to consider any kind of changes at all, we have to be thinking of those concerns."

A motion to amend the ordinance would shape the commission's recommendation to the village council, which will rule on the matter.

While Mr. Hingston announced that he was prepared to make a motion regarding zoning on B2, Mr. Most urged commissioners to wait until the next meeting before presenting formal motions.

Several commissioners noted that they will prepare motions for the next meeting Thursday, March 27. Mr. Most cautioned them to carefully prepare their motions and include written points backing up their reasoning, since action taken on B2 will affect the long-term layout of the village.