Traverse City commissioners voted unanimously Monday to seek an independent legal opinion on a 1947 agreement between the city and the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) that city leaders say grants them power to approval on state reconstruction plans for Grandview Parkway. Commissioners said they weren’t trying to derail the project, which is expected to begin construction next March, but they wanted to make a definitive statement on whether the state needs city approval for any building plans. ‘improvement. Commissioners also voted unanimously on Monday to pass the final version of the Lower Boardman River Unified Plan and to grant easements to the Grand Traverse County Roads Commission for a roundabout construction project this year on Keystone/Beitner/River roads.

MDOT Agreement
A 1947 agreement between the city of Traverse City and the Michigan Department of Transportation (then called the Michigan State Department of Highways) stipulated that neither entity could undertake construction projects on the U.S. trunk line. -31/M-22/M-37 that crosses the city “without the complete approval and consent of the other interested party”. While the MDOT argued in a 2017 memo that the legislation later superseded the agreement and gave the state sole construction authority over Grandview Parkway, as the mainline is known today, city commissioners city ​​voted unanimously on Monday to seek outside legal advice on the matter.

Mayor Richard Lewis asked commissioners to consider seeking legal advice on the 1947 agreement as MDOT prepares to undertake a $19 million reconstruction of Grandview Parkway and part of East Front Street next year. “This is one of those documents that raises a question mark,” Lewis said. While city staff and leaders from groups such as TART Trails and Norte met weekly with MDOT to provide feedback on design plans, in addition to MDOT hosting public input meetings, Lewis believed that the terms of the agreement made it clear that the state needed not just comment but city approval to proceed. “At some point, the city will have to give formal consent to this project,” he said.

However, Lewis said he did not want to act unilaterally and order city attorney Lauren Trible-Laucht to investigate the deal without other commissioners stepping in first. Commissioner Tim Werner said he believed the commissioners had a responsibility “to pursue this and figure it out”, not just for next year’s project, but for any future projects the commissioners will be dealing with in years to come. future. Other commissioners agreed, though commissioner Ashlea Walter said a ‘potential cloud hanging over’ the discussion is the possibility of the city jeopardizing funding for next year’s reconstruction by delaying or disrupting the process of planning. Deputy City Manager Penny Hill noted that MDOT aims to have the Grandview Parkway redesign 98% complete by the end of April or early May and to put the project up for competition in November, warning the commissioners that she did not know how the MDOT would react to the city. continuation of the investigation and possibly the application of the 1947 agreement.

MDOT has weighed in on the deal in recent years, as has a former city attorney. In 2008, then-city attorney Karrie Zeits said in a memo that she was of the legal opinion that for MDOT to make improvements to Grandview Parkway, “it must receive the approval and consent of the city”. She added that she had “not found any document or agreement that supersedes this provision”. However, in a 2017 memo to City Engineer Tim Lodge, Richard Liptak, then director of MDOT’s Traverse City Transportation Service Center, said ACT 51 — state legislation passed in 1951 – gives the MDOT “the exclusive power to build, maintain and improve the trunk of the state”. highway lines,” a view he said was supported by the attorney general’s office.

“There is nothing in ACT 51 that requires MDOT to obtain approval from local agencies to work on its highways,” Liptak continued. “Because the 1947 agreement contradicts Law 51, the agreement is contrary to public order, therefore violates state law and is unenforceable.” Liptak acknowledged the issue was important to MDOT given the “future construction projects” planned for Grandview Parkway, adding that the State Department remains “interested and willing to work with the City of Traverse City during the development and construction of these projects.

Due to the tight schedule of the MDOT design process and the current Trible-Laucht workload, the commissioners agreed on Monday to spend up to $10,000 to hire an outside firm to write a legal opinion on the deal. of 1947. The commissioners asked staff to provide an update — including the notice itself, if it can be changed in time — at their March 7 meeting. Lewis said he didn’t want to delay the Grandview Parkway reconstruction schedule, but said it was better for the city to process the MDOT deal now than risk it happening next year, as construction is about to begin. “That’s where a bad wrench hits the works,” he said.

Also at Monday’s meeting…
> Commissioners have approved the granting of an easement to the Grand Traverse County Roads Commission to construct a branch of a new roundabout – due to be built on Keystone/Beitner/River Roads this year – on city property. The project will combine the county’s Keystone Rapids trailhead, currently located on the north side of Beitner Road, where it crosses the river, and the Oleson Bridge trailhead. The stage requiring a municipal easement will provide better access to a municipal nursery that is part of the natural education reserve; the town owns approximately 54 acres near the roundabout which was the site of the old town-owned Keystone Dam, which was washed away in 1961. The commissioners have also agreed to provide a right-of-way agreement to the Commission of roads for road construction and maintenance, and to authorize city staff to explore options for possibly selling municipal property surrounding the site if a non-profit group is interested in purchasing it.

> Commissioners approved the final draft of the Lower Boardman River Unified Plan, a master plan that will guide planning and improvement projects along the 1.6-mile stretch of the Boardman River between Boardman Lake and the Grand Traverse Bay. The city commission was the latest group to approve the document, with other city councils reviewing and approving the plan in recent weeks. The plan calls for numerous improvement projects along the Boardman River, with the highest priority projects being the reconstruction of the north walkways in the 100 and 200 blocks of Front Street – allowing for the construction of a new pedestrian plaza at the edge of the river in block 200 driveway – and improving the existing gravel road in Hannah Park. Adding a new river walk around Riverine Apartments and extending the walk to Front Street are also high on the list. Moderate priority projects include improved access to Hannah Park, habitat restoration at multiple points on the river, new boardwalk and kayak portage options, and pocket parks and crossovers with the promenade along East Front Street.