Village Planners Favor 10% Setback Option
Maintaining Waterfront View Is Goal at Mackinaw City
By Paul Gingras

To ensure that developers get a reasonable return on their investments, while increasing the amount of space required between buildings along the B2 waterfront district in Mackinaw City, the planning commission voted Thursday, March 27, to require 10% setbacks on lots along South Huron Avenue. It is the least restrictive of several proposed ordinance amendments considered this month, all of which called for more open space between buildings than the village currently requires.

The 1.5-mile B2 district lies between the village limit and the state dock.

Formal language describing the fine details of the decision will be drafted by Village Manager Jeff Lawson and presented to the commission, probably at its next regular meeting in three weeks. If the commission approves the draft, it will be sent to the village council, which will rule on the proposed change.

In addition to the 10% setback requirement, the commission's proposal limits buildings to 250 feet in width, retains a 45-feet height requirement, and requires 1.1 parking spaces for each hotel room, which limits how many rooms a hotel can contain.

The commission considered 15% and 20% setbacks, which would have required more space between buildings and property lines, allowing wider views of the Straits of Mackinac, but allowing fewer rooms per hotel.

Commissioners Mary Clark and Earl Taylor were absent for the vote. Paul Allers, Jeff Hingston, Robert Most, and Rosada Mann voted to require 10% setbacks. Nancy Dean, who favored 15% setbacks, voted no.

The commission used 300-foot lots as a basis for study. In scenarios considered by commissioners, the 10% setback requirement does not guarantee much more space between lots than the 10 feet minimum requirement between buildings and property lines required by the village now, however, details of the proposal prevent developers from constructing buildings that would create continuous, or nearly continuous, walls blocking the waterfront.

Fewer people now own larger pieces of waterfront commercial property than in the past, commissioners noted, and extensive discussion

ensued regarding what would happen if a developer owned a piece of land bigger than 300 feet and sought to build several maximum-sized buildings on one property.

In the most extreme scenario, Mr. Most asked commissioners to consider the following example:

"What if someone owned that entire strip from the North Pointe Inn to the state dock? If they were able to put in ten 250-foot buildings, they would have to have the side-yard setbacks [and leave open space] by the North Pointe and by the state dock, but then you would have building after building after building with zero space between them. The only viewshed you would have would be at the south end of the viewpoint and by the state dock. All the rest would be filled."

To guarantee that the ordinance reflects the intent of the commission's decision, notably to keep waterfront visible in the district, Mr. Lawson said the same setback formula requiring space between buildings and property lines will be applied between buildings on the same parcel.

If a developer must provide 15 feet of open space between the side of a building and the property line, for example, he must provide the same amount of space between buildings on the same property, preventing the "continuous wall of hotels" scenario that the commission seeks to avoid.

"I feel this is what the public has been looking for us to do. It seems like it is fair to the developers and the community," Commissioner Allers said of the decision.

Although satisfied with the decision, Mr. Most said he remains concerned about scrapping the proposal to allow developers one parking space per room, rather than 1.1, as an incentive to work with the village to stagger the size of setbacks on each side of a building.

"I thought we were going to use the 1.1 down to 1.0 as an incentive to get [developers] to move [buildings] over to one side or the other. I am concerned that if we do not do something, they will not necessarily want to move that building. Two buildings and large setbacks abutted to each other would [provide] a great viewshed," he said.

Several commissioners said Mackinaw City's move to require developers to provide 1.1 parking spaces per hotel room, rather than 1.0, was an arduous process in the past. Reversing the decision would be going backward, they said.

The commission could consider other incentives for developers to work with the village to stagger setbacks and create larger viewshed areas, Mr. Most said, once Mr. Lawson's draft is presented next month.