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Subject: Marine City Residents in St. Clair County Asked to Attend Planning Meeting to Protect Waterfront

Posted on: Wednesday, 9 September 2009, 16:17 CDT

MARINE CITY, Mich., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 2,000 Marine City residents in St. Clair County have received a flyer asking them to attend the September 14 Planning Commission meeting to oppose a proposal to rezone publicly-owned waterfront property.

The flyer, signed by St. Clair Aggregates, of Marine City, asks residents to, "Tell City leaders that the Master Plan should be preserved and that they should protect the interests of taxpayers rather than promoting the special interest of businesses that violate zoning ordinances and don't pay their fair share of taxes."

The Planning Commission meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the city's fire hall.

The flyer points out that the St. Clair County Road Commission (SCCRC) is seeking a zoning change of the six-acre site that it has leased to Detroit Bulk Storage (DBS). The SCCRC wants its Parker Road dockyard rezoned from Waterfront Recreation and Marina District (W-M) to Heavy Industrial (1-2).

St. Clair Aggregates said the attempt to obtain approval for conditional rezoning has been filed because the SCCRC expects to lose a pending court case on this issue.

Here are excerpts from the flyer:

"The Marine City Master Plan calls for Waterfront Recreation and Marina zoning on the SCCRC site. The Master Plan has been in place for 14 years, has been updated regularly, and is the result of countless hours and dollars spent to develop a blueprint for Marine City's future.

"Marine City needs additional waterfront property, including parks and boat launch facilities. The City has applied for grants and purchased waterfront property with taxpayer dollars; granting the rezoning would be contrary to all prior plans and decisions made by the City and supported by its citizens.

"DBS has not been paying full taxes on the property it uses. A recent deal between the assessor, SCCRC and DBS allows DBS to pay taxes on only 2.25 acres of the 6-acre facility, yet they seem to use the entire site. Also between 2007 and today, the tax assessor has reduced the value of the dock from more than $2.2 million to under $600,000.

"The 2007 City Commission was originally opposed to granting DBS a business license to operate a retail yard at the SCCRC dock because it thought it was an improper expansion of a non-conforming use. The very first sentence of the non-conforming use ordinance states, 'It is the intent of this chapter to permit legal con-conforming uses to continue until they are removed but not to encourage their survival.'

"The ordinance also states that there can be 'no change in the nature or character of such non-conforming uses.' Nonetheless, after the County threatened legal action against Marine City, the license was issued."

The flyer urges area residents to attend the meeting and "voice your concerns."

SOURCE St. Clair Aggregates

Source: PR Newswire

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