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March 3, 1999Homestead golf course plan back on trackResort asks Army Corps of Engineers to move ahead on approval process for 18-hole course along Crystal RiverBy BILL O'BRIENRecord-Eagle staff writer GLEN ARBOR - A proposal to build a championship golf course at the Homestead Resort, one of the region's longest and most controversial land use disputes, is back. Resort officials confirmed Tuesday they've completed a revised application to the Army Corps of Engineers office in Detroit seeking federal permits to build the 18-hole golf course and housing project on some 267 acres along parts of the Crystal River in Glen Arbor Township. The revised application comes less than three months after a locally-backed proposal to convert part of the property to federal park land fell apart. After more than 13 years of legal and regulatory battle over the project, Homestead president Robert A. Kuras said Tuesday he's confident the resort has exhausted its study of other potential uses for the property and will be able to proceed with its long-sought plan. "If there's one I don't know about, I don't know what it would be," Kuras said. "I would hope that reason would prevail after all this time." A partial application for federal permits for the golf course project has been on file with the Army Corps since 1995, although the resort didn't supply all the information requested by the agency while other alternatives were explored. The first alternative was a much-publicized "land swap" with the National Park Service developed by a group of local citizens in late 1995. The plan was to trade the river frontage for upland federal park property north of the resort. Staunch opposition from the public and from the Park Service killed the proposal by mid-1996. The most recent effort was brokered by the Leelanau Conservancy last year. It called for the resort to sell the golf course property to the Nature Conservancy and for the Conservancy to hold the land for eventual inclusion into the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. That arrangement couldn't be pulled together by a deadline of Jan. 1 imposed by the involved parties. "That prospect was, we are told, supported by the National Park Service but was rejected by the Nature Conservancy," Kuras said in a letter Friday to David Gesl, the Army Corps official in charge of reviewing the golf course project. "After the second of those alternatives was rejected, we again turned our attention to requests made (by the Corps)." Resort officials said they've made several changes which had been requested by officials from the Environmental Protection Agency's regional office in Chicago, which are now several years old. The EPA's objections eventually led to a federal district judge ruling that the golf course project had to be reviewed by the Army Corps, a decision later upheld in federal appellate court. The most significant change involves the relocation of the 17th hole of the course to south of County Road 675, leaving only four holes along the river north of the road. That move was suggested by the EPA. Minor changes have been made to planned wetland impacts along several holes, reducing the wetland acreage filled by .04 acres to a total of 3.65 acres. Another 10.16 acres of wetlands would be cleared for a total wetland impact of 13.81 acres, about 1.7 acres more than was in the original plan for the course. The proposal still includes development of 31 home sites on uplands on the south end of the property. Mitigation for the wetland losses - creating new wetlands elsewhere to replace those filled in - includes creating 6.63 acres of wetlands from upland property and creating deed restrictions for 76 acres of the project to remain as natural, permanent open space. The resort would also donate a narrow strip along 900 feet of river frontage and 1.6 acres of upland to Glen Arbor Township for public recreation purposes as part of the proposal. Resort officials have asked to meet with Army Corps staff before a public hearing is scheduled on the application. Gesl was not available for comment Tuesday and resort officials said a meeting has not yet been scheduled. The golf course project was first unveiled to the township in November 1985 but quickly bogged down in the state and federal administrative and court systems, becoming one of the state's longest-running land use controversies. But there are relatively few loose ends still pending outside of the Army Corps review. In November, the state Supreme Court reversed a decision it had made last spring when it had voided lower court rulings by an Ingham County Circuit judge and the state Court of Appeals which upheld a state permit for the project issued more than five years ago. The Friends of the Crystal River environmental group, which has opposed the golf course since its inception, has asked the state's high court to reconsider its reversal in the case. The head of the Friends organization, Barbara Weber, was not available for comment Tuesday on the revived golf course plan. |
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