MARQUETTE - More than half the land in the 2,243-acre Heartwood Forestland should be kept for conservation and public recreation, according to the final report issued by the Heartwood Forestland Ad Hoc Committee.
Several committee members presented a summary of the report at Monday's Marquette City Commission meeting. The committee said about 930 acres have the potential for residential or commercial development and about 1,063 acres should be kept for conservation and recreation.
Bob Cambensy, chairman of the committee, said it was imperative to protect two key areas of wilderness located in the property - the Carp River Valley and the Morgan Creek area.
He said the areas marked for potential development were identified as the easiest land to develop and were not prime areas for recreation.
In addition, the committee said about 251 acres north and northeast of the Marquette Mountain Ski Area could easily be developed because of its proximity to M-553 and existing infrastructure, but also contains an extensively used and highly valued trail system. The committee suggested the city study the land further in a communitywide planning process.
Cambensy said not everyone on the 11-member committee agreed completely with the committee's final recommendations.
"In the end everybody that was on the committee came out of this with a pretty good feeling that we were probably all 90 percent happy or so," he said.
Committee member Natasha Koss said some areas of the property proposed for development contain heavily used trails. She said the city should create an overlay zone or district on those properties, prior to any sale, in order to protect water resources and ensure trail connectivity with buffers.
For potentially developable land located outside the city limits, Koss said a deed restriction should be placed on any parcel sold establishing buffers around riparian resources as well as some kind of easement for trails.
Committee member Lynn Swadley said the heart of the potentially developable land is near Marquette Mountain. He said some of the area could contain commercial development but most of the developable property in the Heartwood property would likely be residential.
He recommended cluster-style residential development, where housing units are clustered together and the rest of the property is left for recreation and conservation.
Swadley said much of the Heartwood property located in Marquette Township could be developed but is far away from existing infrastructure and would be dependent on township zoning.
He said the Carp River valley was an outstanding community resource and might be looked at separately as a potential city park.
"I really like to think you should treat that protected area with as much focus on enhancing that as an outstanding community feature and figure out ways to get the public access into there ... I'm not saying build a city street out there but little, minor improvements out there would go a long way toward enhancing that additional resource in our community," he said.
Cambensy said 74 percent of the Heartwood property is located in Marquette and Sands townships so it was important the city have good talking and planning relationships with both townships.
The city bought the property in 2005 for $5 million from the Forestland Group of Chapel Hill, N.C. To finance the purchase, the city issued a general obligation limited tax bond and levied 1 mill on city property.
