Elk Rapids residents raise concerns about port redevelopment plans, seek clarity

ANTRIM COUNTY, Michigan (WPBn/WGTU) — A community project is causing controversy in Antrim County.

Although nothing is set in stone regarding the work on the port of Elk Rapids, the city council is urging the public to stay informed.

The project is years away, but what it supposedly entails has spread like wildfire in the Elk Rapids community.

Some improvements are needed at the Edward C. Grace Memorial Harbor.

But what exactly these improvements are is the reason for the call for the population to attend the municipal council meeting on Tuesday evening, even though the topic was not on the agenda.

And people came, even the person who started the conversation on social media…

As everyone knows, I was the person who wrote the original post

A post urging Elk Rapids residents to attend Tuesday night’s city council meeting.

I just want to express my sincere concern about this project.

For months, the Village of Elk Rapids has been conducting “visioning sessions” with residents to find out what improvements they would like to see at the Edward C. Grace Memorial Harbor.

But recently rumors started surfacing about what the final design would look like.

“Nothing is finalized yet as far as visioning sessions and so forth for the harbor,” said Karen Simpson, president of Elk Rapids Village. “Now we still have to do visioning sessions. The council hasn’t even seen a plan yet. So they’re still working on it. I think they’ve decided to leave the harbor alone for the summer.”

Although this project will not be implemented for several years, the community is still concerned that their opinions are not being heard.

“I just want to point out here that if you turn things around here, you are changing the ecosystem here. You are gaining another 100, possibly 130 boat slips that are going to degrade the water quality, diminish our beautiful area and negate all the reasons why you have another 130 boats in this harbor,” said one resident in a public statement.

“I was a little concerned that things were moving forward like this and it was being called renovation when in reality they were talking about over 130, 250 deposits,” said the woman who had previously told the crowd that she was the one who made the social media post. “And then we learned that we already have 100 more than Traverse City, so the community really needed to be informed.”

According to the municipality, some of the objectives of this project are to evaluate the capacity of the marina, improve access to the port area and improve connections between it and the city center.

With some design considerations including boater services, dock materials, ADA compliance, and boat slip types.

“We’ll have people from the port there to talk about the plan, at least the vision of the plan at this point,” Simpson said.

Another visioning session on the Edward C. Grace Memorial Harbor Project will be held on September 3rd and is open to the public.

Here, too, there are no detailed plans yet.