November 20, 2025 Editorial on Zoning

Jan 8, 2026

Zoning Update 

The following is a Zoning Update from Karin Offield who has participated in nearly every planning commission meeting since February of 2024, ever since concerns on the zoning emerged.

Nov 20, 2025

My joy comes from knowing that, instead of reverting to the entirety of the repealed #439 Zoning Code, since last year’s election, the Planning Commission genuinely listened.

They took to heart the community comments voiced at the winter Town Halls, and after the Open Houses, Jeff Grimm made every effort to follow the community’s advice and requests. Many of those suggestions, and then many more, were incorporated into the proposed code.

Karin Offield continues:

“How to frame it ?” It’s a win for the community, proof that a planning code can be built with everyone in the whole town involved, unlike the Repealed Code #439, which was built in subcommittee… but that was then… not now.

If you read the WLHS website, and follow posts across the boards, you will see that we are in favor of the new proposed code, with a few as of yet undetermined details that need to be fixed.

Like the Planning Commissioners, we have a goal of reaching out to the hundreds and hundreds of community members that we interface with. We still can only talk with one person at a time, and we cannot control their opinions, nor is that our mission.

WLHS investigates policy, process, and law, then shares what we find. We push for transparency and proper procedure, not specific outcomes. Our role is research and clarity; the entire community can then decide what to do with it.

We don’t tell people what to think. We give them the facts to think with. Individuals form their own views and speak for themselves. When we engage with the Planning Commission or Council, we can report what happened: we raised concern X, and the body responded with Y. That’s accountability, not advocacy. Our focus stays on how the city operates, not on winning or losing particular votes.  That said, our bias is toward deliberation over speed, especially when decisions shape the community for decades.

Last week, WLHS was asked whether WLHS would “approve” the proposed code. Speaking as Karin Offield, I will support the proposed code, but the question remains on how to address the unresolved issues we believe are not settled. The “Rust to Judgement” serves as a reminder that good zoning policy, like good craftsmanship, requires time, care, and a steady hand.

The Planning Commission preferred that certain changes wait until the City Council review, or, alternatively, be handled in early 2026 by the Planning Commission as part of a “clean-up process”.

I am not in favor of this choice. We have been raising these issues since September. Just as rust forms when something is rushed, neglected, or not fully prepared, rushing to judgment on a major zoning code overhaul can create long-term problems for the community. The current draft shows real effort, but it’s not yet as strong, clear, or community-aligned as it could be.

There are reasons why: We don’t rush the zoning code.

A zoning rewrite is one of the most important decisions a small town can make.
We take the time to review, refine, and get it right.

  1. We welcome careful, constructive input
  • Community voices make the code stronger.
  • Good zoning is built from collaboration, not deadlines.
  1. We aim for clarity, fairness, and enforceability
  • A zoning code should serve everyone (residents, businesses, and the City) without confusion or unintended consequences.
  1. We protect what makes Harbor Springs special
  • The code should reflect our values: stewardship, scale, character, and community balance.
  1. We improve the draft, not attack the people
  • “Rust to Judgment” is about process, not personalities.
  • We focus on fixing the document so it works for decades.
  1. We commit to a code that stands up over time
  • A rushed code creates problems later, disputes, variances, costly corrections.
  • A thoughtful code protects taxpayers and preserves trust.

The outstanding zoning concerns are not new. They were raised by community members in the Feb/March 2025 Winter Town Hall Notes; during the Open Houses (9.3-9.11.2025); summarized in the 60 Questions gathered from the community and published by WLHS on 10.10.25; and are also included in Lynee Wells Memo’s. As a reminder, Lynee is a City Planning Professional. She was hired by WLHS on August 14th to help us understand the various Planning steps and manage details with the city. These documents are included for reference:

Outstanding Issues

The following are issues that remain open in the draft zoning. We have raised concerns on these issues throughout the review. Often, they were deferred by the Planning Commission for later in the process. As drafted, these provisions in the proposed code reduce transparency and increase the risk of lawsuits.

  1. Administrative Review Committee (ARC): Accountability and Incentives

The ARC is a subcommittee with the power to approve certain construction projects without a public hearing. The draft zoning code narrowed its scope in response to longstanding community concerns. Uses that previously qualified for ARC review were moved to full Special Land Use review or removed entirely. The Planning Commission intended to restrict the ARC to overlay districts and minor site-plan adjustments.

Despite these improvements, structural concerns remain.

The Planning Commission is composed of resident volunteers who live with the consequences of their decisions. The ARC is not. It is staffed by the Zoning Administrator, City Attorney, City Manager, and Planning Consultant: paid professionals, most of whom do not live in Harbor Springs, and none of whom are subject to public appointments and OMA. When decision-making authority shifts from elected or appointed residents to administrative staff, accountability follows.

This matters because incentives follow structure. Approvals generate permit revenue, expand the tax base, and increase the administrative workload, which justifies staffing levels. None of this makes staff corrupt, but it does mean the system lacks a natural brake. Residents provide that brake. They bear the long-term costs of out-of-scale construction: blocked views, parking strain, and altered neighborhood character. Staff do not.

Under the current proposed draft, the ARC retains authority to approve Commercial Business District projects up to 5,000 square feet, without neighbor notification or Planning Commission review. This threshold is unusually high. Comparable communities limit administrative approvals to 1,000–1,500 square feet, or require public notice for anything larger. A 5,000-square-foot approval in downtown Harbor Springs is not minor. It reshapes the streetscape.

Questions also remain about how the limit is measured. Does 5,000 square feet apply to the footprint or to the total floor area? Could multiple additions be approved incrementally? Could a 15,000-square-foot structure across three stories be approved without any downtown neighbor involvement?

While Assessor Jeff Grimm has noted that the ARC may be appropriate for technically complex shoreline and floodplain matters requiring specialized expertise, the CBD is a different context. These are not technical engineering questions; they are questions about community character. They belong in a public forum.

Recommended approach:

  • Reduce the ARC approval threshold in the CBD to align with peer communities (1,000–1,500 sq. ft.).
  • Require neighbor notification for any project above that threshold.
  • Clarify measurement standards (footprint vs. total floor area; cumulative additions).
  • Reserve ARC authority for genuinely technical matters, shoreline, floodplain, where expertise outweighs public deliberation.
  1. Planned Development (PD): Objective Standards Protect the City and the Community

A Planned Development is an exception. It allows a property owner to bypass the zoning requirements that apply to everyone else in exchange for meeting special conditions. When approved, a PD creates a unique zoning district for a single property, one that didn’t exist before and won’t apply to anyone else.

This tool has legitimate uses. But it also carries serious risks if the approval standards are vague.

The legal exposure is real: Courts uphold zoning decisions when they rest on objective, measurable standards. Courts are far less predictable when decisions rest on subjective terms like “harmony,” “compatible character,” or “substantial injury.” A developer denied a PD can sue the city, claiming the decision was arbitrary and capricious. If the code offers no clear criteria, only judgment calls, the city has little to stand on. Past approvals with different outcomes become evidence of inconsistency. The city then faces a choice: approve a project the community opposes, or defend a lawsuit it may lose.

This is not hypothetical. It is how zoning litigation works. Subjective standards invite legal challenges. Objective standards survive them.

The governance problem runs deeper: We have been told to trust the Planning Commission. But we do not know who will serve on future commissions. The repealed Code #439 demonstrated that a Planning Commission can misread community intent, and that correcting the error takes years. For several years, our PC had some non-citizen members who were appointed without validating citizenship. Will that happen again? Vague PD language gives future commissions wide discretion to approve projects that conflict with neighborhood character, with little recourse for residents. Each PD approval becomes permanent. Each subjective standard becomes an opening for an activist commission, or a risk-averse one trying to avoid litigation, to override what the community built the zoning code to protect.

Harbor Springs already has multiple zoning districts. The code provides options. If a project cannot meet the requirements of any existing district, the question is whether it belongs here at all, not whether we should invent a custom district to accommodate it. PD should be a narrow exception with high, clear thresholds, not a flexible tool that rewards developers willing to push.

The current draft’s PD standards (Sections 10.2.1–10.2.6) include qualifying objectives that legal experts have called too vague to provide objective guidance. Section 10.2.10, which governs application determinations, should explicitly direct the approving bodies back to those standards—but the standards themselves must be tightened first.

Recommended approach:

  • Replace subjective terms (”harmony,” “nuisance,” “substantial injury”) with measurable criteria tied to the Master Plan, adjacent zoning, and documented community priorities.
  • Elevate alignment with the Master Plan from a consideration to a mandatory qualification.
  • Require that any approved PD meet standards at least as restrictive as the most protective existing district, not looser.
  • Add an early-disclosure step at the pre-application stage so neighbors are notified before a developer incurs significant design costs, and strongly encourage the applicant to communicate with adjacent property owners.
  • Retain the option for the Planning Commission to require performance bonds to ensure projects are completed as approved.
  • Ensure Section 10.2.10 explicitly references the objective standards in 10.2.1–10.2.6 as the basis for any determination.

Objective standards do not prevent good projects. They prevent bad decisions—and they protect the city from bearing the cost of defending them.

  1. Commercial Business Districts (CBD) first-floor height, measurement, and massing

Clear guidance is needed on how first-floor height is measured and where the measurement begins on a property. Also, the height of the first street level floor needs clarification. Eliminating the maximum story height for buildings, including residential and commercial buildings, has the potential to result in out-of-scale and out-of-context construction. Increasingly, in an effort to maximize leaseable space and views, flat roof box buildings are rising along shorelines and in resort towns at three stories tall. Without the limitation of the 2.5 story maximum in residential areas, there will be cases where new homes may rise to three stories (and garages at two stories) within 8′ of the property line (in R-1B, for example) or at 5′ for the garage.

Similarly, in the CBD, limiting the height of the first floor is important to ensure that massing aligns with neighboring buildings and the ground floor, which is experienced by passers-by, is at a human scale. Urban design theory and architectural practice recommend that the first floor in a commercial hub should be around 14 to 15 feet high. This greater height is desirable for accommodating larger retail spaces and providing large windows (transparency), which is consistent with goals to attract more activity downtown. Or is this more “urban” than Harbor Springs wants to be?

Recommended Approach

  • Compare undesirable architectural trends to test if they would be permitted under the proposed zoning.
  • Hold a public discussion on the heights, with examples, and confirm that the PD proposals meet the goals and objectives of the City of Harbor Springs Master Plan.
  1. Errors and Typos in the Draft

Mistakes/referencing mistakes and errors still exist in the proposed code. Let’s fix them now. because mistakes become harder to correct after adoption.

Recommended Approach 

  • Fix it now, as it’s an opportunity to improve the final product.

Where things stand now

At the November 20, 2025 Planning Commission meeting, the Commission voted to move the proposed zoning code over to the City Council.

Following the Planning Commission’s vote to forward the draft to City Council, Commissioner Kenny Stewart wrote to express his appreciation for WLHS’s work and the contributions of residents across the community:

“Are the proposed updates perfect? No. The updates are much better than what we have for our current code and night-and-day better than the repealed code… The draft zoning code updates of October 21 are a product of the people. The Planning Commission sought input, we listened, we debated, we drafted and we listened again.”

“WLHS has played a valuable role in setting a high bar, and the Planning Commission has sincerely tried to meet or exceed those expectations.”

“One of my goals for joining the Planning Commission was to be part of an effort to bring our community back together. I’d like to ask for your help in doing that… You and WLHS have a very special moment in time and are best positioned to help bring us back as one community.”

We are trying to keep the seasonal residents and township residents calm, united, and working toward a rational, respectful, positive conclusion regarding the zoning code, so we can all end up in the same place.

We appreciate Commissioner Stewart’s words, his sincerity, and his recognition of the community’s role in shaping this draft. His letter underscores what many feel: this zoning rewrite has been a collective effort.

WLHS values unity, and unity grows from good process, open dialogue, and shared facts. We also value independence and accuracy. WLHS does not “approve” or “disapprove” zoning codes as an organization; individuals take positions. Our role is to ensure transparency, research, and clarity so that the community and the City Council can make informed decisions.

Ultimately, it is up to the City Council to listen to the reasoning and decide what is best. Many residents feel there is no need to rush. Deferring the zoning code decision into early 2026 poses no risk to the community and would allow the remaining issues to be addressed thoughtfully