By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Saugatuck long has been primed for growth. Think blue skies reflecting on water, sun glinting off sand dunes and beaches, the two primary hues combining to feed green trees, inland orchards and money as consequence, good or bad. These high-end homes, outdoor spaces plus restaurants and shops that draw more and more people each year fare best kept in balance.
Earth Day Eve
Southwest winds 20-30 mph blew in high-50°s temps greeting citizens braving Saugatuck Township Hall’s latest facelift to join the planning commission’s session April 21.
Tangram LLC developer/partner Johnny Walker stood braced for most that followed. Foes of Tangram’s proposed 40-condo Enclave on 19.3 acres northeast of the township’s year-old roundabout, graced by an 11-foot-tall abstract “Canary in a Coal Mine” sculpture, stood ready too.
Tangram’s plans once more faced opposition from many neighbors, mustered by Capizzo Gallery owner Nick Cappelletti and Gaslight Estates developer Joe Novakowski, COO of Elzinga and Volkers. Both have deep roots and stakes here.
Both too are scions of sorts. Cappelletti is from a successful publishing lineage who collected art, plus with ex-wife Anne helped raise a daughter, Mary, and son Joey, both Saugatuck High School graduates who went on respectively to Universities of Washington and Oregon respectively.
Joey is now a state house reporter for The Associated Press in Lansing. Nick and partner Michelle Pizzo have combined names to form Capizzo galleries on west and east sides of Michigan.
Capizzo West, which Nick describes as an outsiders art gallery, May 7 again hosted the annual Saugatuck-Douglas Art Club exhibition attended by this writer/photographer, whom, full disclosure, briefly worked with Joey when he was cutting his journalistic wings with The Commercial Record while still in high school.
Elzinga & Volkers, whose namesake founders 80 years ago launched a building and design firm with offices in four states, the nearby Holland one included, is currently helmed CEO/President Mike Novakowski.
COO brother Joe lives with his wife Jennifer, son Austin and daughters Lisa and Christina at 3347 Gaslight Lane, the sole north-south development between Blue Star Highway, the old north-south road here before I-196 replaced it as that, in a large home on a semi-gated home near the current south end of Gaslight Estates.
Their back yard overlooks an easement all the way to Allegan Road, which could link Gaslight’s existing lift station at 134th Avenue to a possible new one on attainable land near Allegan.
Neither Gaslight nor the proposed Enclave are a far reach from the Kalamazoo Lake Sewer and Water Authority wastewater treatment plant at 6649 Allegan Road.
Page B2 of the April 30 Commercial Record posted notice of KLSWA’s intent to buy $6.5 million in bonds to update the plant. The township sought last fall to buy excess plant capacity from Douglas and/or Saugatuck cities, but despite the latter being largely built-out, its council majority chose to hang on to its asset share.
Engineering studies show the township still has enough of its own to supply the already-approved 30-home Singapore Retreat condo development. Koetje Builders LLC is that project’s applicant; Tangram shares with them Exxel Engineering as partners) and Enclave both as proposed, but told Saugatuck Lodging LLC —now constructing 76 prefab cabins, a clubhouse, firepits and childrens’ play areas on its 29.24 acres bought from realtor and developer Chad Van Horn —its proposed 26-site Phase Two must likely wait until the township acquires more capacity.
This, Township Manager Daniel Defranco told The Commercial Record then, might be accomplished by buying it from the cities or ponying up to expand the plant.
Kicking off the night’s opposition was Cappelletti-hired attorney Silas Kok from the Grand Rapids Varnum law firm, which is high-end literally. Varnum is lone practice in Kent County’s capitol city with its name bannered on mirrored windows 15 stories up in the Bridgewater Place downtown.
Kok reiterated arguments first voiced by Varnum partner and trial law specialist Kevin Konwinski to the planning commission Jan. 19, still hadn’t been addressed. Foremost among his objections are “applicants’ failure to establish ownership or authority … The ordinance expressly limits who may submit an application.
“It must be submitted,” Konwinski continued, by (i) the owner of the subject property, (ii) a purchaser under a sale or option to purchase, or (iii) an agent authorized in writing by the owner.”
Walker that night replied “I was introduced to folks who, like me, believe in the land. All are men or women who live within 15 minutes of here who have asked their names be kept confidential.
Walker and his family are listed as Gold/Silver Level Sponsors for the Saugatuck Center for the Arts’s Sept. 10 Farm to Table gala funder at Quiet Creek Farms.
The 2048 Lakeshore Drive spread is owned by builders Duane and Kevin Brown, who gave also to Saugatuck-Douglas History Center efforts to restore the Old Douglas Root Beer Barrel on the southwest corner of Ferry and West Center streets. The location, like its old one back in the 1950s into 1970s, says a historic plaque onsite, lies enroute to and from both Saugatuck’s Oval and smaller Douglas Lake Michigan beaches.
Hungry beachgoers coming and going can eat foot-long hot dogs, drink foaming mugs of root beer, do so seated at picnic tables under red umbrellas, play cornhole and more lawn games on the park-like setting. Restrooms and electricity too are available next to Douglas’s Beach to Bayou Trail.
Fourth-year Barrel manager Todd Martinson and his family have brought Douglas happy returns for their license fees. Thyey have launched more local ventures, most recently helping renovate the 10-years-defunct Toulouse Restaurant into downtown Saugatuck’s Noble Twist Brewery. It stands just a block west of the town’s only public parking lot, in which spots are at a premium during spring, summer and fall events and on weekends when downtown is packed. Saugatuck Public Schools’ extracurricular participants and parents collect $15 a pop, shared with the city, to use it nearby and just west of the SCA. Already Noble Twist is a hot spot.
More Twists
Cappelletti too April 21 read from his latest at the time missive, stating in part, “I want to speak to something bigger than just this one application. There’s a growing feeling in this community — and you hear it in coffee shops, on the street, in conversations with neighbors— that we are drifting into overdevelopment, and that what’s being approved is no longer aligned with the spirit of the Master Plan.
“And I think,” the gallery owner went on, “people are starting to ask a very simple question: ‘What kind of community do we want to live in?’
“Does anyone enjoy driving by the massive toy barns (the Saugatuck Lodging cabins going up on 135th? Does anyone feel good about the clear-cutting (this on land southeast of the township’s I-196/Blue Star Highway Exit 41) behind the Shell station?
“Does anyone think a small lake turning into a sand mining operation (perhaps directed towards Van Horn’s development near his family’s home) is the direction we want to go?
“Because those aren’t isolated moments. They’re signals,” Cappelletti continued. “They’re the result of decisions like the one in front of you tonight.
“Now, the Master Plan actually gives you very clear guidance here. It calls for preserving the small-town and rural character of this community. It calls for sustainable and orderly growth — not speculative overreach. It emphasizes environmental stewardship and protecting natural resources.
“And it makes a point that I think really matters tonight,” Cappelletti concuded, “that the pattern of development matters …”
More neighbors voiced their own objections, among them Cary Schneider and husband Jeff Buysse at 6531 Allegan; Chuck and Nancy Parrish of 3368 Gaslight Lane; Lisa Pentiuk of 3344 Clearview Lane; builder Brett Lesiewicz, formerly of Saugatuck Township now living just north in Laketown Township.
Township planning and zoning administrator Lynee Wells reported receiving letters supporting the Enclave too, including ones from Walker’s Miller Johnson attorneys, Saugatuck co-shop owner (with partner Richard Williams) Christian Kindel; Brian and Candace Grant, the Realtor who sold Enclave land to Tangram; Miriam Rogers-Walker of nearby 6010 Allegan and others.
Walker had his own response, saying some critics may have been convinced by lies spread by Novakowski’s short-lived “Keep Saugatuck” website. After we Google-searched this site in vain, Walker emailed us a screen shot and speculated Novakowski had pulled in down it down post-meeting, maybe just four days shy of Arbor Day.
“He started,” Walker told The Commercial Record reading from the screen shot he’d sent, “saying Tangram (not Koetje) is the Singapore Retreat applicant.
There’s the matter too of Novakowski April 21, 2025 — one year and one day before the most-recent PC meeting — being cited by the Michigan Environmental, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) department’s Water Resources Division for illegally filling wetlands just north of Allegan Road, east of Tangram’s Enclave site.
It ordered Novakowski to, within 30 days:
- Install silt fence or similar soil erosion control immediately downgradient of the fill area;
- Remove all unauthorized wetland fill as shown on the enclosed site restoration
plan (diagram available) and marked with flagging on-site during the April 8, 2025, site inspection. Material shall not be placed in regulated areas such as wetlands, streams,
floodplains, etc. If necessary, request WRD review of disposal locations, or specify location for spoils disposal; - Restore the wetland fill area to the original grade with exposed original soils.
- Stabilize the site by placing seed and mulch.
An informal drive-by shot from Allegan Road shows the restored easement site three weeks ago.
The Commercial Record was unable to contact Novakowski by press time Monday about these and other matters, wrongly thinking Cappelletti might serve as conduit, but soon after he emailed us, “I heard from another person that Scott is trying to get a hold of me for an article. I haven’t found any emails or missed calls so am reaching out to get his email address. Thanks for your help.”
We responded to him at once, but after this draft of our Part 3 story was largely written, Monday afternoon.
We said we can’t wait to hear.
To be continued
