YOU HAD TO BE THERE...

...at the December Planning Commission Meeting.  What was said was hard for me to believe, but there it was!

You remember Agritourism, right? You remember that it started as an individual's proposed text amendment and was "taken over" by the Board under Pete Storlie's chairmanship. Two separate public hearings were held. Many concerns were expressed. The proposed text amendments offered little in language and perhaps even less in development of concept, in my opinion. Ultimately, a task force was appointed by the Board to look into it further.

The task force, at any rate, met for months and hours and hours and hours. You might remember that there were also two open houses for citizens to ask questions and offer input by means of questionnaires and verbal comment. These open houses were not a given; people had to press for the opportunity for those of you who came.  It makes sense to me that community input should be sought and that people should be given multiple ways to give their feedback.


This feedback should be considered carefully and thoroughly by the Commission and the Board. After all, they represent all of you! The Township Attorney was also asked to take the task force language and come up with the ordinance. So we have spent much time, effort and funds on this topic.


Now, to the December Commission meeting. When the four Commissioners (Commissioner Barfknecht was absent) were starting to discuss the proposed ordinance language, Commissioner Novacek objected to it. He used the example of the provision for up to 100 sq. ft. of retail space to be allowed for sale of non-ag items before an Interim Use Permit (IUP) would be required.  (I remind you that the Attorney actually advised that all agritourism have an IUP so that the Township could better control this use through conditions specific to each instance.  His language did not reflect this as that is not what the Board asked him to do.)

Novacek stated that he thought that 10,000 sq. ft. would be better!!!  The other three Commissioners, which included two task force members, Hansen and Cleminson, responded, "That's a Wal-Mart!"  Novacek indicated that he didn't see their point.  Commissioner Jennings said, "We are zoned ag!" Novacek's response?  "That's arbitrary."

I seem to remember a township-wide vote back in the early '80s whereby the citizenry determined that it wanted to keep the one house per quarter-quarter zoning that would allow agriculture.  That's not arbitrary.

Zoning started, if I remember training sessions correctly, back in the 1920s. Before that pollution-spewing factories could be right next to residences.  It was better for people's quality of life if these uses were separated. That's what government's duty to protect the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens is about.






Novacek went on to say that he thought everyone should be "able to live the way he wants to."  I don't think he has followed this to its logical conclusion. If Person A wants to live in Manner X, and say Manner X is owning a big box store alongside his house, what about Person B's  ability to live as he wants to if Manner X is objectionable to him and he lives right next to Person A? What if Novacek is Person B? What might he say then?  You see where it goes.  Our community has self-determined that it is ag.  That means certain uses do not fit in the zone, although we do allow certain non-ag uses such as churches and schools under Conditional Use Permits. But that was also done through public input and ordinance adoption.

At any rate, Commissioner Novacek said he was going to do his "own research" on the topics to be regulated by the Agritourism Ordinance and bring it to the January meeting coming up this Monday, the 5th. I sincerely hope that the other Commissioners remember all that has gone before and all the discussion it took for the task force to get to its conclusion.  Even the task force, just the six of them, had a hard time agreeing.  I don't think it should all come down to a Committee of One, do you?