Residents fill VBT meeting to discuss new lake ordinance

The board meeting room at Van Buren Township Hall was filled with residents who live along Belleville Lake and wanted to find out more about the two proposed ordinances that will affect their lives.
A public hearing was held Jan. 25 before the VBT Planning Commission for the proposed 30-page Belleville Lake Shoreline Districts amendments and General Ordinance.
Matthew Best, deputy director of planning and economic development, said this is the seventh time a lakeshore ordinance has been attempted. After a meeting a year ago where a similar crowd objected strongly to the document presented to them, the ordinance changes were withdrawn from moving forward and turned over to a committee of those opposed to work out a compromise.
Best and planning and economic director Ron Akers praised the work of the citizen committee. They said they just sat back and let the committee work, offering directions when needed.
Attorney Will Hawley, who lives on the lake, was signing up people for a law suit against the township last year. This year, after serving as chairman of the citizens’ committee that worked on the documents for more than 30 hours over the last year, Hawley was supporting the ordinances.
“I was most vigorously opposed to the ordinances at the time,” Hawley said at the public hearing last week, referring to last year. “I thought it was ridiculously overburdening.”
He said there were a dozen active members of the committee including two lawyers – him and Doug Peters.
“The last one I was not happy with at all,” Hawley said. “We spent a total of 30 hours … and they worked because they love the lake.”
He said they asked why after 60 years without an ordinance do they need one now?
He said he was convinced and, “I want this ordinance.”
He said last year’s presentation indicated everyone was grandfathered in, but it didn’t have a grandfathering clause. They put one in.
“I’ve been watching Oakland County lakes where regulations bury people,” Hawley said, noting the grandfather wording is a very important clause and the committee unanimously wanted that.
“If this isn’t in here, we’ll turn on this like rabid dogs,” Hawley said.
He said committee members suggested re-deeding the property along the lake to the residents, but they found that couldn’t be done because of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license. The money that comes in pays the costs of the dam.
“You’ll never be the owner, but you’ll have sole recreational use of the entire property,” Hawley said.
He said the township is getting into property disputes and that’s why they want an ordinance.
“Anything that was stricter than MDEQ, we took it out,” Hawley said. “The township was going to make up their own regulations and we said no.”
“We eliminated the unnecessary regulations and formed an informal resolution panel,” he said.
“If we don’t finish this, they’ll go back and do it again,” Hawley said. “If you find something in here you don’t like, I want to know.”
He said the township doesn’t have the resources to do a lot of enforcement and, “If I’m going to own it, I have the responsibility to clean it up… I think we satisfied every single thing I needed to do.”
Then, 15 residents, came to the microphone, asking specific questions about the ordinance and how it would affect their properties. They also gave comments on the history of the dam.
Attorney Doug Peters, who had served on the committee, explained the situation.
“We do not own or have exclusive use of the land between the land and water. Someone could come up in a boat, get out their hibachi and tent and stay overnight. That’s not illegal,” Peters said.
Once the ordinance is passed the shoreline residents would have exclusive use of this piece of land between their property and the lake.
“Now is the time to do this,” Peters said. “We will get exclusive rights.”
“We did the very best we could to benefit the citizens.”
He discussed the history of the lake and the dam, noting he enjoyed the water being down when the lake was lowered, but it ruined the dam. It cost $25 million or so to replace the dam and the township gets about $50,000 a year for lake patrol after the bond payment for the dam replacement.
He said the township made a deal with the devil when it signed up with FERC.
He said there was a vote and the people throughout the township didn’t want to pay for the dam to provide lake access for lakeside residents.
If the dam wasn’t there, the sometimes very narrow Huron River would be running along the bottom of a steep hill, with barbed wire fences and dead trees still in place.
Bob Fedchenko, an engineer of West Huron River Drive, said when Edison owned the lake living along the lake was nice. But, when Edison sold the lake to VBT for a dollar, “a lot of our freedoms were lost.”
He said they used to drop the water level down each fall so people could work on docks and cut up trees.
“The big problem is the FERC license, which stipulates the level of the lake for 12 months a year and the township gets $50,000. The township gets $4,000 to $5,000 a year in taxes from each house.
“We can no longer work on docks and cut up trees,” Fedchenko said, noting as far as regulations and government, government can’t get enough.
“Move with caution on this,” he warned. “There are too many regulations. It should be scaled down.” He asked how much less revenue the township would get without the FERC license and the audience applauded.
Fred Trombley of North Liberty Street in the city of Belleville said in the 1950s they dropped the water down three feet and everything caved in.
Fedchenko said dropping three feet didn’t hurt anything. It was when they dropped the lake for the bridge to be built that there were collapses. He said as soon as the FERC license came in 1987, they stopped lowering the lake. He insisted the dropping of three feet didn’t bother the seawalls and people could repair their properties.
Dave Frankling said he now has a very large dog and they have a fence around the house and down to the lake, but there is a stipulation that there will be “no fence on property” and he wanted to know if his fence is grandfathered in.
Akers said the FERC license currently does not allow residents to put fences on the property. He said a fence would be grandfathered, but it’s a structure and could be a problem.
Frankling said the ordinance said it’s a $2,500 fine a day and sometimes it takes a year to go to court. He said the ordinance is 30 pages long and the penalties make it impossible to fight city hall.
“Why do that?” Frankling asked.
Akers said they can’t issue fines while an appeal is under way. He added, “The holy grail of ordinances is voluntary compliance.”
Michael Long of Borgman Avenue said some of the original rules were made to keep minorities from the lake. He asked what the “court of equitable appeal” would be and he was told that would be the Board of Zoning Appeals which would handle appeals.
Long said the ordinance situation started with Judge Stempien’s order in the 1990s when there were access problems on Lake Pointe Pass.
At the end of the 90-minute meeting, planning commission chairwoman Carol Thompson said the township will roll out a schedule for the ordinance. She said the commission usually doesn’t vote on an issue the same night as the public hearing.
The ordinance will come up at the next meeting or the next. Best said they will put the status on the front page of the township website and residents can check the agenda posted before each meeting to see if it is scheduled.
Akers said if the planning commission approves the ordinance it will go to the board of trustees for a work/study session and then to a regular board meeting the next night or the next regular meeting. At that time there would be a first reading and then at the next meeting a second reading. It takes about a month to pass it, Akers said.
Chris Donley of West Huron River Drive thanked the committee for making the bad ordinance “a little less bad.”
After mentioning specific problems with the ordinances, he said, “I would like the township to have a plan in place to clean up its shoreline,” noting the residents will be held responsible for their shorelines, while the township doesn’t clean up its own property.
Akers asked if he was referring to Van Buren Park, noting, “There have been discussions.”
“A lot of cost there,” Best added.
“We feel your pain,” Donley said.