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February 17, 2005Zoning, planning tools will be put to the testThings are booming in Blair Township. Let's hope it doesn't look like a bomb hit the place when it's done.Like so many other areas in the region, Blair is experiencing unprecedented economic activity. - A massive Menard's home improvement store is being built near the U.S. 31 and M-37 divide. - Just up the road, south of U.S. 31 and Rennie School Road, a new minor league baseball park that will also include a small hotel is being built. - Last week, developers announced plans for a 61,000-square-foot indoor water park with a spa and fitness center, a 16,000-square-foot conference center and 173 condominiums nearly adjacent to the baseball park. All of it will be served by expanded water and sewer service. For Blair residents, the development boom is two-edged. The new additions should bring jobs, more shopping choices, more development and a bigger tax base. But without a powerful commitment to good design, the new additions could become a maze of asphalt, curb cuts and driveways, lights and signs. Portions of U.S. 31 already look like that. And it isn't pretty. Allowing exceptions to rules now paves the way for exceptions later. And that brings visual clutter and chaos. Blair's experience should be a lesson for other townships in the region. It wasn't all that long ago that development along U.S. 31 in Blair consisted mainly of used-car lots and a handful of small, stand-alone businesses. The past 10 years, however, have seen a major uptick in development, both in quality and quantity. Zoning laws, master plans and review and appeal processes that hadn't been put to the test are now keys to the future. Bus plan is a hard sellSupporters of the Benzie Bus Initiative get points for courage and determination.If the past is any indication, that may be all they get. For untold years now, public transportation has been on the agenda of just about every local government in the north. Benzie currently runs a limited dial-a-ride system and buses travel to Traverse City and Manistee. The group hopes to establish a system that would connect with those buses and provide direct links to Frankfort, Benzonia, Thompsonville and Lake Ann. It would tie into the Bay Area Transportation Authority. No one doubts the good a reliable service could do. But the reality of too many miles and too few riders has always made public transit an uphill sell.
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