By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Another Roundabout
“Here we go again,” I thought hearing news Pine Trail Camp had sold within 10 days of Saugatuck Township scheduling a $3.6-million bond request towards buying the land itself.
Private money moves fast and nimbly, especially for largely wild waterfront acres sure long term to appreciate in value.
If approved Nov. 5, the now-moot township bond would then have required agreeing to final terms with sellers, then likely seeking state grants to convert the 20 Pine Trail acres into a public park.
What seller has time to wait on ifs, buts and maybes when bills come due — including for rising taxes, in part used to buy and maintain said property — every month? When bucks are assured on the table, why not grab them now?
At the first meeting I attended as new editor of The Commercial Record in May 2006, the township board voted to apply a new R-4 zoning, its most-restrictive every, to land ringing the Kalamazoo River mouth at Lake Michigan.
It was clearly targeted at and applied to much of the 420 acres newly sold by Denison family estates to Aubrey McClendon, whose lawyers doing so was unconstitutional (“equal protection under the law” is a 14th Amendment keystone) and, should the township persist, they’d sue.
“I’m not in Wayland (my last newspaper stop) anymore,” I thought.
McClendon — an Oklahoma City natural gas magnate and billionaire who described himself as “the world’s biggest fracker,” could write a check and fulfill provisions in wills left by sometimes-divided Frank and Gertrude Denison
A years-long public fundraising effort to save what many still call “The Wild Heart of Saugatuck,” noble though it be, couldn’t pull that off.
Litigation on multiple levels has gone on since as Jeff Padnos, owner since 2016, well knows.
Sale of Saugatuck’s former 130-acre Presbyterian Camps in 2014 south of Oval Beach was a different case but had parallels.
Here, Grand Rapids international real estate mogul Paul Heule outbid a cobbled-together local group’s efforts to, once again, “save” the camps. They, as was Pine Trail, were run by a Chicago-based church consortium fallen on changing demand for such uses and increased operations costs.
Heule’s Dune Ridge LLC has since built 21 high-end homes, including ones owned by himself and NFL quarterback Kirk Cousins, in the process providing property tax revenues from limited city land heretofore tax-exempt.
Litigation on that one continues too, this time with Saugatuck city on the giving/receiving end.
Past may not be prolog, but township legal bills fighting McClendon threatened to become ruinous and eventually a settlement one might best call a Pyrrhic victory for both sides.
Back to Pine Trail, private capital waits on no one when opportunity’s right. Efforts to drive down the parcel’s resale value by limiting development on it — as has been tried with McClendon-Padnos et.al. — remain public rights, as enshrined by law, for good reason.
Should conservationists’ ship come in — in the form, say, of the $10.5-million Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund grant that in 2009 helped the city acquire the 173-acre south McClendon parcel — Pine Trail’s new owner might consider recouping at least part of his/her investment by selling it to the public … if, when and maybe. Here we go again.
Halloween Parade
Hystopolis Productions has an interesting name. Hys- as in “hysteria” means a state of exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement; -opolis as in “metropolis” is an ancient Greek term for city.
The local group — essentially Erin Wilkinson plus Village Puppeteers Larry Basgall and John Herbert —is best known for putting on Douglas Halloween parades, which draw thousands to downtown the Saturday nearest to the holiday/ It’s fun, it’s a blast, it’s an off-season tourist draw and each year I’ve gone I’ve felt absolutely safe.
No wonder city council was asked Tuesday to “forgive” the group’s $2,187 costs for police and public works crews collect overtime, joining in the fun.
… with thanks.
