Following a Leelanau Township Planning Commission meeting , a public hearing has been set for June 13 to address the future plans of a 195 ft. tall telecommunications tower in Leelanau Township on Kitchen Road.
The township’s Planning Commission received a presentation May 9 from county administration representatives like Matt Ansorge, Leelanau County’s emergency management director, and Richard Lewis, the acting Leelanau County Administrator, who also answered questions from board members about the overall project.
The presentation comes after Leelanau Township announced last month that the tower project would be put on hold, citing miscommunication between county and township officials throughout the process.
Last month, Ansorge said the initiative for the communications tower was initially brought to the county by the township in order to meet their broadband and cellular coverage shortages in the area. In September of 2021, a Leelanau County Broadband Inventory Survey found the township as the most underserved population in the county. Then township supervisor, John Sanders, and other officials met with the county not long after in January 2022 to discuss solutions and possible tower sites.
The county and township have been working together to move forward with tower plans since 2022, approving major actions such as the township passing a resolution urging the county to assist with their coverage shortfalls, and the board’s approval to commit $100,000 in American Rescue Plan Act monies towards the project.
The proposed project plan includes the tower construction, excavation of a 5,000 square foot area for the tower compound and foundation, and establishment of a 1,500 foot driveway. The Kitchen Road site was also identified via a site study as the preferred location to provide the widest (cellular and broadband) coverage for the township.
“We needed to identify landowners that would be open to putting a tower on their property, Brian (Mitchell) was one of them, we had a couple others, the Middletons, Idyll Farms and what not, and exploring those areas,” Ansorge said last Thursday. “The Kitchen Road tower covered the entire township… having a one focal point where more than one carrier can get there and service the entire township, that was the end goal. That’s what the township wanted, and that’s what the county intended to do.”
Despite the efforts made so far, steps in the process were overlooked. Since the project began, there have been three township supervisors, with Ansorge noting miscommunication between township and county officials over who would take care of what part of the process.
At Thursday’s meeting, Steve Patmore, Leelanau Township’s zoning administrator, said because the tower project is for a proposed special land use application, the township will have to hold a public hearing before the planning commission can consider issuing a special land use permit.
“You have to have a public hearing, we will do findings of fact very thorough, we may or may not have our attorney involved, we may or may not have our planner involved during that time… and you have 90 days to review it,” Patmore said at the meeting.
Planning Commission members unanimously agreed to set the public hearing to June to allow for more time for the public and themselves to review the special land use permit application. To review the application in its entirety, which includes the site plan, soil erosion permit and proposed driveway plan, people can visit leelanautownshipmi. gov/meeting-minutesplanning- commission.
