“It was never a wetland in the first place.”
Although a 1990’s survey identified a two-acre parcel on North Despelder as environmentally sensitive wetlands, it’s not what Grand Haven city planner Brian Urquhart calls a natural feature. But the result of development around the property.
“The property was built up over time around it has been kind of a sunken area where the water has been able to filtrate.”
“It has been left vacant for 25 years.”
The property is owned by the Salvation Army and advisory board member Tom Reinsma says the Army wants to sell the land to the non-profit Dwelling Place for an affordable housing development, but first Grand Haven council has to remove it from the list of city wetlands.
“In order to do the development, the sensitive overlay on the property needs to be removed.”
“I think it is evident it is now high-quality wetland.”
Mayor Bob Monetza and the rest of city council voted to lift the wetlands restriction, but the mayor does not think this should be routine.
“My concern is that if we start picking apart sensitive area overlay, we will find reasons to disqualify more and more areas from being sensitive areas and then at some point you wouldn’t have a sensitive overlay anymore.”
