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(Editor’s Note: Amanda Danielson writes, “If we fail to preserve the farmer as well as the farmland, the vacuum won’t remain empty. It will fill, and quickly, with housing developments, a golf course, a casino, or worse: the slow drift into a hollowed-out landscape that looks preserved from a distance and functions like nowhere at all.” Amanda is a board member of the Citizens Coalition of Old Mission Peninsula, owner and sommelier of Trattoria Stella in Traverse City and Shady Lane Cellars in Suttons Bay, and the owner of a 20-acre vineyard project on the OMP just north of Mapleton. -jb)
Old Mission Peninsula is right to be afraid. We’re just afraid of the wrong things.
Old Mission Peninsula residents should be afraid. Not in a melodramatic, end-times way, but in the sober way you get afraid when you love something and can see how easily it can be lost.
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The alternatives to a viable agricultural peninsula are not romantic. If we fail to preserve the farmer as well as the farmland, the vacuum won’t remain empty. It will fill, and quickly, with housing developments, a golf course, a casino, or worse: the slow drift into a hollowed-out landscape that looks preserved from a distance and functions like nowhere at all. (Editor’s Note: See the Township’s Master Plan here. -jb)
The activist instinct that birthed Protect the Peninsula came from a real place. It is not wrong to defend a peninsula from speculative development. It is not wrong to worry about quality of life, protection of natural resources and environment, access to water, noise, and the thousand small cuts that turn a bucolic rural community into an expensive sprawling suburb.
But here’s the turn we can’t ignore: over decades — across boards, supervisors, planners, and election cycles – our governance culture has too often treated agriculture itself, especially modern, value-added, vertically integrated agriculture, as the thing that needs to be contained. We have been trained to fear the wrong threats, and in doing so, we are courting the very outcomes we say we want to avoid.
Old Mission should be afraid. We’re just afraid of the wrong things.
Peninsula Township learned how to say “no” then forgot how to steward a living economy.
If you want to understand how we got here, you have to start in the late 1970s, when anti-growth sentiment ran high and community organizing became a potent force. The peninsula learned that public hearings could be overwhelmed and that referenda could be deployed as a last resort. Those tools were effective. They stopped real projects. They sent a message that if you push too hard, the community can push back harder.
And for a time, that message felt like preservation.
But a community can’t govern by stoppage alone. “No” is not a land-use plan. Over time, restriction and delay became less an emergency brake and more a default operating system. The process became the point. Fighting change became the culture. And eventually the peninsula stopped distinguishing between speculative development that consumes farmland and agricultural evolution that keeps farmland alive.
This is where the story becomes less about activism and more about governance failure: when a township’s processes repeatedly produce uncertainty for working farms and stymie agricultural change, the market will do what the township cannot. It will consolidate land, it will move investment elsewhere, and it will reward the easiest path to the highest profit. Inevitably, that is the very path we claim to oppose.
The great compromise of farmland preservation only works if the deal is honored.
Old Mission did something visionary when it embraced the Purchase of Development Rights program (PDR). The concept was clear and fair: landowners give up housing sites; the land stays private; the farm stays a farm. Early participants used that equity to retire debt, fund retirement, and enable generational transfer. Those are the very mechanics that should keep land in production rather than on the market.
But PDR is not just a funding mechanism. It is a covenant. And covenants depend on trust. A preservation program collapses the moment farmers believe the rules can change after the sale. What was once a predictable future became a permission-based future, subject to shifting interpretations, political winds, or committee bottlenecks. You can’t ask a family to sell development rights to “preserve agriculture,” then gradually strip away the economic tools that make agriculture feasible in the modern world.
Preservation without viability is not preservation. It is managed decline.
Why did wine become the recurring battlefield?
As traditional fruit markets evolved and external pressures mounted, local farms diversified and wine grapes grew — along with the basic logic of modern agriculture: value-added matters. A farm that grows crops but cannot adapt how it processes, sells, welcomes, educates, and markets those crops will struggle to survive. That’s not ideology. That’s economics.
And yet, over and over, vertically integrated agriculture was treated as suspect—something to be negotiated, contained, or made so cumbersome that only a certain type of operator could survive it. Each dispute yielded another amendment, another layer, another patch, until the ordinance became a hodgepodge of arbitrary restrictions that no longer reflected a coherent philosophy. It only accumulated the residue of conflict.
For a period, the temperature dropped when the rules were more predictable and some “use by right” pathways existed. They weren’t universally embraced — and the push to rewrite them returned quickly once applicants tested the edges — but predictability itself is the oxygen farms need to plan investments, train staff, take on debt, expand production, and compete in real markets.
It’s not that Old Mission doesn’t have standards. It’s that it needs standards that function.
The turning point was when “preservation” started pushing agriculture into a permission culture.
In recent years, we have witnessed the increased drift from predictable standards toward discretionary permission decided by a handful of individuals. We witness more and more of modern farm activity pushed into special approvals, where the primary tools are delay, uncertainty, and exhaustion.
We watch a Township require farm operators to give up basic rights and restrict their own potential when that very Township should instead be the structural support a farm community can rely on.
This is not a neutral shift. It doesn’t simply “raise the bar.” It changes the entire posture of governance from clear rules to case-by-case judgment. And, case-by-case judgment is where the process becomes weaponized, whether intentionally or not.
Special approvals are fertile ground for disruption. They invite endless argument, subjective interpretation, and the slow grinding down of applicants who are trying to run businesses, not wage drawn-out procedural wars. They also create an unspoken hierarchy: the well-capitalized can survive delay; the next generation often can’t. It provides advantages for those who can absorb delay, which is a cruel standard for the next generation.
If no one can reliably secure approvals for legitimate agricultural evolution, the effect is predictable: innovation stalls, young families leave, and the peninsula’s “agricultural future” becomes an artifact rather than an economy.
And when agriculture stops being an economy, the alternative uses show up right on schedule. History shows us that land use always trends towards the highest and most profitable use over time. If we allow no profitable path for agriculture, suburban sprawl will continue to fill that void.
Old Mission Peninsula is not an HOA. Agriculture is not an amenity.
We do not “keep farms” the way we keep ornamental landscaping. A farm is a business, and a farm economy is a living system. A farm must respond to market demand, labor conditions, climate volatility, and changing consumer behavior. If we insist farms remain static, we are not preserving them. We are asking them to fail politely.
The Peninsula Township Board cannot, in the long run, micromanage every evolving use — every processing upgrade, every seasonal need, every small entrepreneurial step — through discretionary approvals. That governance model is not sustainable. It creates a permanent bottleneck and turns routine farm decisions into community-wide battles.
We cannot educate every resident into the realities of agriculture overnight. But we can build an ordinance that assumes agriculture is legitimate, provides clear standards, and restores “use by right” pathways for innovation and growth — especially on land already preserved for agriculture.
What does “afraid of the wrong things” really mean?
Yes. Be afraid of speculative development that consumes farmland.
Be more afraid of a governance culture that makes agriculture so difficult to practice that farmland is eventually sold out from under us.
Be afraid of a peninsula that preserves views while losing farmers.
Be afraid of a preservation program that becomes a trap: money is raised to “save” farms, while the rules simultaneously reduce those farms’ ability to remain economically viable.
Be afraid of a future where the only people who can endure the permission process are the ones who don’t actually need agriculture to work as a business.
That is how you get the very outcomes we say we fear: development pressure returns, political fights intensify, and the peninsula becomes a commodity rather than a community.
A viable future requires structural change, not more patchwork.
If we want Old Mission Peninsula to remain a world-class agricultural region, one that is preserved through economic resilience, then we need to stop operating from crisis to crisis and rebuild our framework with adult clarity.
Those serving in township leadership now didn’t author all of this history, but do have authority over what happens next. Choose governance that protects neighbors and preserves farm viability. Trade an endless process for clear standards. Honor preservation covenants in practice, not just in slogans. In short: do what is right for agriculture so the peninsula doesn’t wake up one day ‘protected’ into becoming something else.
That means:
- Restore “use by right” environments for legitimate agricultural activity –especially for small entrepreneurs and next-generation operators.
- Create clear, objective standards for larger transforming farms so that growth happens within guardrails, not inside a roulette wheel.
- Draft and adopt a comprehensive agricultural ordinance that reflects modern vertically integrated agriculture, rather than treating it as an exception to be contained.
- Honor PDR covenants in spirit and in practice: preservation must not become an after-the-fact constriction of viability.
- Use committees and public processes to increase clarity and transparency, not to multiply ambiguity.
- Stop governing agriculture as if stability equals stasis. Stability comes from predictable rules, not from freezing time.
None of this requires abandoning preservation. It requires practicing it seriously.
The greatest threat to Old Mission is not a farmer building a facility to keep their business alive, it is a peninsula that makes farming impossible then acts shocked when the only viable options left are the ones we vowed to prevent.
Old Mission Peninsula should be afraid. Let’s be afraid of the right things, so we can build an adaptable framework that keeps the peninsula workable and worth inheriting.
– Amanda Danielson, board member of the Citizens Coalition of Old Mission Peninsula, owner and sommelier of Trattoria Stella in Traverse City and Shady Lane Cellars in Suttons Bay, and the owner of a 20-acre vineyard project on the OMP just north of Mapleton
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What a brilliant well written synopsis of what is happening here. As a small farmer, we have been watching the recent events unfold with shock and dismay. The writer captured everything I’ve been hearing from my neighbors.
Residents and readers, please refer to page 92 of the township board packet to find a leaked email that looks an awful lot like Amanda conspiring with Bern Kroupa and OMCC’s lobbyist Kent Wood in a concerted effort to manipulate public opinion, smear my family’s farm among other defamatory attacks against public officials, and coerce the township board. https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:9d160bd0-7311-4f8b-8728-226ed471ecf2
Interestingly it looks like the leaked email was intended to be sent to Todd Anson, who claims not to know what OMCC is, in order to coordinate the wave of media that we are seeing in real time. I wonder who else is part of this astroturfing? If Todd is blatantly lying about his involvement with OMCC in order to manipulate you, I wonder what else he and his contemporaries are lying about?
Apparently Amanda and her colleagues with the OMCC; a collection of failed political candidates, former township officials who developed and passed the very ordinance amendment that triggered judge Maloney’s $49 million financial judgment against the township, and folks who look at these as their thought leaders, are only concerned with the wellbeing of farmers who will cave to their demands and stay in line.
If you believe that all farmers support the OMCC agenda, please understand that an article of faith among many farmers on the OMP is that Wunsch Farms has suffered from years of nuisance regulatory complaints in addition to apparent tampering with our business relationships as retaliation for my involvement with Peninsula Township—remember how we lost our 30 year marketing relationship for apples a couple of years ago? That termination occurred two weeks after Bern and Cheryl Kroupa’s “farmer letter” was signed by the same processor who terminated our contract. I do not have concrete proof that they defamed our business, but the timing was very suspicious.
The reason that many farmers do not speak up is that they fear similar reprisals if they speak out against OMCC and its policy positions. These folks are not pro-farmer—they have no scruples, no integrity, no honor and will seek to crush any farmer who voices dissent from their position.
You are being targeted by a well-funded lobbying and PR campaign. OMCC has hired a planning firm to re-write the township’s zoning ordinance without public input. You should be asking yourselves some serious questions. I do not expect the OMCC to respect me—in fact, I am sure that I will be subject to further retaliation just for making this post. However, I do expect them to respect the voters and residents of this community. Their lack of respect for transparency, honesty and process is frankly appalling. I hope that this serves as a wake up call to our residents.
Up front I want to confirm that I am consulting CCOM on agricultural issues and had the opportunity to work with Amanda when she was drafting her document. .I have no current financial stake in agriculture and am not a resident of OMP. I am however a firm believer in AgTourism as a savior for farmers in our area. You need to read her document carefully as it is essentially a “wake up call” for farmers and residents alike. You want farmers to survive on OMP then face reality or continue on your march to OMP becoming another Aspen. Wunsch Farms probably knows better than most that viable cherry growing by itself will probably occupy no more than 800 acres on OMP in a few years time.
I am more concerned with John Wunsch’s outrage that his fellow citizens are working to have a voice in PT politics. The existence of CCOM has not been a mystery. They have been fully transparent and even more so with the release of their internal communications. They are attempting to give the citizens a voice by looking at alternatives and publishing thought pieces that go beyond the “dictatorship” of three to five minute comments at Township meetings.
There is nothing sinister about asking tough questions and perhaps putting your name forward as challengers to incumbents. The township is much better off by their existence because there is a place that citizens, who do not feel that they are listened to or respected have place to go. Of course change should follow established process that’s called Progress and Democracy in all it’s messy forms. The Township will be better for it.
This is the email that I just sent to you and the rest of the Township Board in response to Todd Wilson’s email that was included in the Agenda Packet for the up coming March 10 Township Board Meeting.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is the intention of the Citizens Coalition of Old Mission Peninsula to find, evaluate, and disseminate accurate, truthful, and pertinent information to the citizenry.
Our plan had been to pursue a more systematic process through open dialogue at Township Board meetings, public sessions, and through FOIA requests. My error, however, has brought these matters into the public forum sooner than intended. Given that, the better course now is not to dwell on how that happened, but to address the questions themselves.
The concerns reflected in the JDA timeline and the OMCC Action Plan are not personal attacks. They are legitimate questions about matters of public importance: how PTP has operated, whether its relationships with certain Township elected officials raise concerns about impartiality, and whether some public statements by elected officials call into question their ability to act objectively and in the best interests of all Township residents. These questions are especially relevant in light of PTP’s position that it may hold meaningful leverage through a JDA with respect to any settlement between WOMP and the Township Board.
Although Judge Maloney has now entered a Stay of Execution, that stay was not in place when the Citizens Coalition sent Letter 1 and Letter 2. At that time, the prospect of the Township confronting a judgment exceeding $49 million required urgent public attention. After the Stay was entered on March 2, the Coalition intended to slow down and seek a more orderly path for discussing the concerns raised in Letter 4 and Letter 5.
Instead, my mistake has accelerated that timeline. The only unfortunate consequence is that it has distracted from a discussion that deserves far more energy than accusatory public rants.
So now that these questions are in the open, why not answer them?
If the questions are unfair, they should be easily answered. If they are fair, they should be fully addressed.
Fred Woodruff
4824 Forest Avenue
Secretary and Director, Citizens Coalition of Old Mission Peninsul
Wow this is insane. Your organization is caught working with womp and anson, spouting transparency, and you say it’s okay because we are right. I wish I had your irrational confidence. Who are you to demand anything
Thanks, Jen. Good point.
Yes thanks Jen. Excellent point!
Fred Woodruff dealings behind the scenes and now his attempt to justify is sickening!!!
I agree with your comments!
Fred, thanks for your email to the right address this morning. Please explain how your organization rationalizes developing and then passing on a false light accusation of tax fraud against my family’s farm for Todd Anson to post on social media as in alignment with the “intention of the Citizens Coalition of Old Mission Peninsula to find, evaluate, and disseminate accurate, truthful, and pertinent information to the citizenry”. It seems that OMCC is great at platitudes and mission statements, but when it comes to actions you appear to be sleazy and dishonorable. The attack was inaccurate, untruthful, and irrelevant to your non-profit charter, and your members further deceived the citizenry by fencing it off to a third party to post on your behalf so that you could engage in skullduggery without impeaching the credibility of your board members. I may be a polarizing figure on the OMP, but at least I have the integrity to own my opinions, rather than finding third parties to post controversial takes and slander for me.
If we’re on the topic of transparency, who is funding your group? You all have smeared PTP for months as a co-defendant in the WOMP lawsuit and you seem bent on disrupting a successful appeal and vigorous defense of ordinances that were developed over the course of decades, in the view of the public, and with the opportunity for your board members to weigh in. Why? Why is your group pushing so hard to disrupt the township’s legal defense, when you are nominally worried about financial damages? Could it be that you are again not being entirely honest with the public and that your funders have an interest in either an adverse financial outcome or adverse policy outcomes for the township? The action plan of your group seems to indicate that perhaps this is the case. I will eagerly await your response to these questions, although given the willingness of your group to blatantly and brazenly lie to the public, I don’t know why anyone should believe whatever you and your colleagues have to say.
Responding in the same tone that’s always been present in our few in-person conversations: direct, calm, and not interested in vitriol.
Yes, Bern Kroupa and several others were asked to help fill in dates and details for a historical timeline. That isn’t a conspiracy. It’s what happens when a community tries to understand decades of policy and process. And for what it’s worth, similar issues are being discussed by farmers and entrepreneurs across Michigan: when township governance drifts into a permission culture, it’s the working people who absorb the uncertainty and cost.
On the “leaked email” framing: if you’re looking for a smoky back room, you’re going to be disappointed. This isn’t Watergate. It’s board packets, dates, ordinance language, court filings, and the public record. Snippets can make almost anything look like “coordination,” but coordinating information, what happened when, and how we arrived here is not the same thing as manipulating public opinion.
Also: this isn’t “about you” any more than Carly Simon’s iconic song is about…well, no one is sure. The argument is about systems: ordinance architecture, process culture, and the long-term consequences of governance choices.
A few points that should be noncontroversial:
A) If anyone believes a statement is defamatory, quote the exact line and address it in daylight.
B) If anyone believes the timeline is wrong, correct it with sources.
C) If anyone believes farmers are being chilled into silence by fear of retaliation (from any side) that’s a civic problem that deserves attention, not escalation.
Residents deserve a real conversation that stays on the merits: what would an adaptive, transparent, predictable agricultural framework look like. Could it be one that protects neighbors and keeps farms viable without turning every evolution into a procedural war?
If the goal is dialogue, that’s the path. Let’s work less with “who’s secretly in league with whom,” and more with “what standards actually work.”
First, I’d encourage any interested party to read the full contents of the leaked email. Yes, there’s a timeline, but there is also a plan of attack.
As to your “non-controversial points:”
A) Todd Anson posted the following excerpt on NextDoor less than a week after your board was overhead discussing using this same allegation against Wunsch Farms due to Barb’s donation to PTP and her deposition on behalf of PTP, because your group apparently believes in extreme reprisals for those who step out of line:
“As you & I know, the business expense tax deduction is broad & uncapped, unlike an individual’s charitable deductions, while charitable contributions have meaningful limitations. Taking a business expense deduction for a contribution to a nonprofit reveals key business motivations for doing so, separate from the charitable propose.”
For any concerned parties, Barb told me that she has only ever donated $10 to PTP. Don’t worry Todd, it was after tax dollars. I appreciate your concern, but it’s pretty clearly misplaced.
This is an assertion that Wunsch Farms has engaged in tax fraud. I am sure that you would be upset if I accused Stella of tax fraud without any factual basis, particularly if I were doing so in order to manipulate, coerce or extort you. The plan that you developed with Kent Wood and Bern Kroupa indicates that you plan to send me a letter in order to try to coerce me, and to “escalate if necessary.”That’s not dialogue, it’s manipulation.
The “real conversation” has been playing out for years in the form of dialogue, transparent public meetings, and ordinance amendments. If you want to meaningfully pursue change, join the Planning Commission or an advisory committee like any other citizen—your reliance on lobbyists, PR firms and land use consultants to astroturf support and. rewrite the zoning ordinance in a back room, all paid for with dark money, comes across as pretty shady.
B) I have not yet thoroughly read through the timeline of events to verify its accuracy
C) I can assure you that farmers are being chilled in to silence, and your colleagues on OMCC are frequently cited as a chilling factor. Your ready willingness to hit Barb for having the temerity to testify for PTP is a clear indication of that.
Maura’s email replies throughout the packet you shared modeled the right approach for this moment: stay on the record, quote specifics, address the substance, skip the insinuations. Let’s do that here.
If there are claims to litigate (like the “Barb’s $10” stuff that showed up in Mr. Anson’s piece), litigate them where they belong—as a reply to his post.
The point of pulling the timeline back to the ’70s was to get off the treadmill of antagonism and provide historical context for those who, myself included, aren’t deeply rooted in OMP agriculture but now have a stake. It also makes something plain: this Board didn’t create the mess. But it *is* in position to help lead us out of it—toward a future that supports resilience for farmers (the people) and the land.
Read what was written. Comment on that. Legislate the noise where it belongs. Face forward.
How can anyone believe anything that these groups have to say? I was wondering how you’d try to spin that you’ve all been caught. Looks like you’re using “there’s nothing to see here”. There is definitely something to see here. Proof a small group of disgruntled people have taken it upon themselves to undermine this community. You should stop digging the hole you’re in.
Hi Ann,
I saw your post and emailed independently, copying Maura for transparency. I have received a number of calls, so decided to reply here as well.
I did not intend to have that essay posted anywhere, but my LinkedIn page. Enough people read it and it quite literally got carried away. I hope you read it. I wrote it in good faith and care deeply about preservation. Here is the link to another essay I wrote on that topic as well: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amanda-danielson-8b02085_we-use-the-word-preservation-like-its-a-ugcPost-7428502931789848576-nB5k?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAADrowQB2hBjumyFdpUKPI3g02NZSjD2R2M.
I represent only myself, my business, and the non-profit I founded in 2021, Intentional Agriculture. I serve on the Board of the Citizens Coalition of Old Mission Peninsula, because I was asked to lend my perspective on the economic viability of farming across various crops and scales. That does not mean that I agree with every board member any more than members of my own Board of Directors, employees, or colleagues universally agree with me. The constant chatter about individuals and special interest groups distracts from the issues at hand.
Again, I hope you actually read the essay. I believe that members of our Township Board are capable of sound leadership. I hope that collaborative discourse overtakes the noise.
Respectfully,
Amanda
well I see the problem is you associated with some ugly groups and were caught so its always easy to say lets talk about the issues. Your essay doesnt say much since its full of generalities but the fact you and the others were caught red handed says alot. my son asked how did santuci get access to your files? shame on the lot of you
I shared my essay with several people, and they in turn shared it with others. I wrote it with the understanding that it would be read and discussed. When Mr. Santucci asked whether he could post it here, I said yes. People may disagree with my perspective, and that is their right. But there is no hidden story behind how the essay became public, nor was there any nefarious intent.
James, I read Amanda’s piece and, as a farmer, I thought she raised several important points that deserve consideration by farmers and non-farmers alike. In particular, I appreciated her perspective on the historical trajectory of our zoning ordinances. She captures something important when she writes that what we need are predictable standards rather than “endless special approvals where the primary tools are delay, uncertainty, and exhaustion.”
Under those conditions, it becomes very difficult to preserve farmland or create opportunities for new and small farmers to enter the field.
I forwarded her op-ed to Jane for consideration for the Old Mission Gazette.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TqGlRbCtvPJb8gwGOTZk11sRmz07xwB92pRrDPA_Ds8/edit?usp=sharing
That is a link to the timeline where everyone can comment and following is the call for assistance completing it I posted on Nextdoor:
Hi all! Here’s quick note and an ask before I go dark for a bit (off to work). One of the OMP farmers who gave me a ring this morning pointed out that the entire working timeline I put together with help from a handful of people isn’t the same document that was referenced earlier. I wanted to share it with a big (hopefully fun) ask:
If you’ve been around a while—names on roads and such—please help complete this timeline. Add dates, documents, ballot items, ordinance changes, and corrections with sources if possible. I haven’t added the Amicus briefs or the recent stay, so please do. This can be a great resource for residents new and generational.
(I posted the entire text on Nextdoor and it is too long, so go there or access the document through the link.)
Feel free to add any local lore that might be fun to include in the director’s cut.
Interesting how a new special interest group (OMCC) is trying to turn the tables on a citizen group (PTP) that has long been established by Peninsula residents (since the 70’s), one full-filling its mission of helping to (successfully) preserve the agricultural integrity of OMP, only until this new group does not like the zoning restrictions newcomers have bought into.
“The constant chatter about individuals and special interest groups distracts from the issues at hand.”
Yes OMCC, the issue at hand is preserving our agricultural zoning, protecting our viewsheds and supporting our generational family farmers on OMP (who could sell out for profit), over the over development of allowed agricultural uses by investor groups working to change the rural character of farming on OMP.
Agritourism all over this country (and the world) is ruining community and burdening (raising the costs) of aging and limited infrastructure of rural communities. In areas like OMP, where geography is challenging, (one road in and one road out), of course residents are going to challenge commercial (non-farming) growth because ultimately the greed of some out-ways the general peace and tranquility most value (and pay for)living in an agricultural zone.
Citizens on OMP are tired of this assault on their way of life and only want to help preserve our agricultural open-spaces they have identified in years of strategic planning.
If our residents truly want to gage how the OMP community feels about this assault on our zoning, I have long suggested a referendum vote to see what our taxpayers truly feel about allowing the unlimited commercial growth to agriculturally zoned land on OMP.
The assault on OMP’s character is real and now that the Township has mass support from other related organizations through amicus briefings, groups like OMCC are pulling all the stops (using PR firms) to validate their personal financial ties to OMP agriculture (smoke screens) rather than working toward reasonable zoning amendments we all can get behind.
At this point it clearly looks like the township could win this legal battle but outside interest groups will keep fighting because they now see this and are pulling all the stops to misinform the residents of OMP and threaten the trustees we have elected to guide us. Sad.
Your letter clearly identifies the issues facing Old Mission Peninsula but is heavily slanted to what even the trial judge identified is a NIMBY agenda. The reality is you cannot have it both ways 1)saving agricultural and and view sheds and 2) saving the farmer. The first is an unrealistic aspiration the second is an economic reality. I respect your passion for the past but just as you saw in Traverse City during your terms of service change happens. The trick is to embrace change while protecting community. The changes in agriculture are dead clear our farmers are dying- and AgTourism is a hope for their future The ironic fact that both agriculture and tourism have been the key economic drivers on Old Mission Peninsula since the end of the Civil War. Population growth infringing on agricultural businesses is the real. That is the sad fact. Fortunatelv CCOM has been formed to give others a voice.
Don has been pounding the drum of the dying cherry industry for decades in order to argue for relaxed restrictions on commercial and tourism businesses operating in the ag zone. Ironically, he also claims that you must allow vastly expanded commercial uses to his industry because it can’t stand on its own two feet without relying or regularly arbitrage. And yet, my farm has planted basically half as much new cherry acreage in the last 8 years as we have total grape acreage on the OMP. Much of this has been expanded acreage, which really rankles the guys who disparage me as the beneficiary of a “legacy farm” or a “gift.” Sure, the baseline farm operation has been extremely helpful to me, but my success in the space has been much more a function of generational wisdom than generational wealth. Contrary to Don’s previous assertions, I think that there is plenty of opportunity for motivated, patient entrepreneurs in the tree fruit space provided that they adapt to modern technologies and markets, which the farmers associated with OMCC have largely failed to do.
In my opinion as an ag economist, the policy overhauls that this group is seeking are primarily oriented less toward providing pathways to success for limited resource beginning farmers and more toward providing a golden parachute to retiring farmers who failed to maintain viable ag businesses on PDR land and providing opportunities for well capitalized investors who want to bring the full bundle of property rights that exist for commercial property owners in TC to ag land on the OMP.
I have not needed to demand a dramatic overhaul of township regulations complete with a total disregard for the interests of residential neighbors in order to achieve a growing farm operation. I appreciate Don’s confidence in the validity of his opinions about industries that he knows nothing about, but it is clearly misplaced. It is unfortunate that Don and his colleagues must resort to underhanded defamation attacks against my farm and I, but we are an annoying aberration to the narrative that they are trying to sell to the public.
I hope that the recently revealed OMCC strategy gives residents some things to think about and helps to raise some questions about the integrity and the motivations of a lot of the think pieces and hit pieces that we have seen in the past five years, given that it is now abundantly clear that much of this messaging has been developed by a well-organized and well-funded astroturf campaign.
Pay careful attention to the smears that they will mo doubt level at me in the next few days—they make no sense. On the one hand, I am accused of being a devious corporate farmer seeking to gobble up all of the farmland on the Old Mission Peninsula and displace hardworking middle class billionaires who just want to run a couple of event centers and restaurants
Isaiah, what astounds me is your single minded commitment to “my way or the highway” if you require evidence of this fact revisit your opposition to a lavender farm that was just attempting to find a path to attracting and selling to customers. . Considering that your business model involves value added and direct sales principles there are more opportunities for agreement than conflict. This is not a personal attack, it is a personal appeal to look at the crises facing agriculture and to support solutions and yes, AgTourism is one proven solution.
Don, I’m continually impressed by your overconfidence. Unlike you, I have not spilled ink disparaging other people’s industries on which I don’t have enough knowledge or context to speak intelligently. It’s funny that you accuse me of a “my way or the highway approach,” when if we look at the record I have for decades advocated for substantial policy changes at the behest of wineries and direct market ag, whereas you have consistently staked out an extreme, one size fits all approach and loudly proclaimed that any ag business that doesn’t align with your own vision and experience is a failure or is doomed to failure.
Thank you for bringing up the lavender farm issue. Yes, I felt that I had to impose a 50% ag limitation on a business operating in Peninsula Township’s ag zone because I am aware of the practical realities and legal constraints of zoning issues. I do not want my community to face further lawsuits or unmitigated legal and policy risks, and my decisions as a board member seek to balance property rights and entrepreneurship against these real and tangible risks. Whether through willful malice or plain ignorance, you and your contemporaries on the OMCC board used your time in decision making roles to enact policies that ignored these constraints, and those decisions have cost the taxpayers in this community dearly. I’m not sure whether you made those decisions out of naked self interest or simply because they were easy, but your policy initiatives as an ag commissioner and Bern and Jed’s decisions as PC and board members are all significantly causal to the $49 million in damages that our community is facing in addition to legal costs. Out of respect, I have avoided pointing fingers for the five years that I have been involved in the clean up effort, but I think that it is time for the old guard to take some accountability for their failures and recognize that it is time to hang it up and allow the current generation to clean up the mess that they created.
I represent the processor that supposedly “Canceled a 30 Year agreement” with the Wunsch group because of pressure from the Kroupa family. I’m here top say that is completely false and I could go into the reasons why but that would give credit to a theory that is completely outrageous.
I sighed the letter that has been referenced for two reasons. 1. I have a strong belief that a farmer has the right to farm and given the current economy create added value actions to their farm in whatever shape this looks’ like
2 The job I’m not compensated for is Township Supervisor of Shelby Township which is a similar size community with a large mix of generational farming families, residents who enjoy Lake Michigan and farms that have diversified into wine tasting facilities, Agriculture tourism, wedding venues etc….. Our job as a Township Board is to listen to every resident, develop and execute a mid to long term strategy which facilitates growth and prosperity. We have a fiduciary responsibility to manage every single tax dollar and not just to “Pay the Bills” but provide tax payers a return on their very large investment in the community. (Roads, parks, schools etc which also includes a solid path for farmers)
I have zero stake in what your community is going through but I understand the complexities.
The timing of the two events seems oddly coincidental; the fact that I asked for an explanation for the termination and your staff refused to provide it, even more so. It’s helpful to understand that your own ideological position aligns with Bern and Cheryl’s.
Your group was one of 12 letters and in every region in Northern MI. I reviewed the letters today from several years ago that you acknowledged receiving and it clearly states we are reducing Tart cherry purchasing in Northern MI so I’m struggling to understand why you continue to create a connection that simply just not exist.
As for the reference of my position being similar to Bern and Cheryl as a Township Supervisor. I could never support a Township Board that didn’t have similar values in providing the community with Fiscal responsibility and a plan to move a community forward. To be completely transparent I don’t have a true understanding of your position or theirs and I really don’t need to. I will not be responding to anymore online conversations as the virtual world was meant to share information and to date I have not received a request from you to have a conversation regarding your concerns which I would gladfully have.
You wrote that farmers should be able to create “added value actions…in whatever shape this looks like.”
I think that statement reflects exactly why this issue is so contentious. Many residents here support farmers and agriculture wholeheartedly, including vineyards and wineries. What concerns people is the idea that any activity attached to a farm or winery — no matter the scale or impact — should automatically be allowed under the banner of agriculture.
Living in a community has always meant balancing individual freedoms with the rights of neighbors. One person’s freedom to expand a use can’t come at the expense of everyone else’s ability to enjoy the place they chose to live.
You’ve described the core tension very succinctly, and I appreciate that. For many citizens, especially those not directly involved in agriculture, whether on Old Mission or through family history elsewhere, this is exactly the problem as they understand it. The issue is not support for farming itself, but where the line is drawn between preserving agriculture and permitting uses that may change the character of the place for neighbors. That is a fair concern, and one worth addressing with clarity.
Too many improbable worst-case scenarios are being treated as inevitable if minimum acreage is reduced below 40 acres or if agriculture-related activities like wine dinners and farm stays are permitted by right. That is not the same thing as opening the door to party barns and wedding factories.
Every sector has people who push limits and violate the social contract that underpins the rules. They should be dealt with when they do. But they should not be used as the basis to over-legislate responsible operators. Doing so is akin to writing rules for vandals and imposing them on stewards.
The impact of a new subdivision on a large piece of farmable land also bears mentioning: multiple-car households, landscapers, service traffic, and a steady stream of delivery vans all bring their own burdens and permanently alter rural character. That reality should be part of the conversation as well. We need to find a balance that protects both agricultural viability and the qualities people value in living here.
I agree that drawing the line between supporting agriculture and preserving the character of a place is exactly the challenge our community is grappling with.
Where I disagree is with the suggestion that concerns about traffic and scale are “improbable worst-case scenarios.” On Old Mission Peninsula we have two primary roads in and out. Even relatively small events add vehicles to those same limited routes, but the discussion hasn’t been limited to small gatherings. The wineries themselves have expressed interest in hosting larger events such as receptions. A single wedding of 120–150 guests can easily mean 60–80 additional cars arriving and leaving within a short window of time…and that’s just one winery. That kind of concentrated surge is very different from everyday agricultural activity.
The subdivision comparison also comes up frequently, but the traffic patterns are not the same. Residential traffic tends to be steady and dispersed throughout the day. Event-based uses create concentrated spikes — evenings, weekends, and peak tourist season — often when the peninsula is already at its busiest.
These concerns are not about assuming bad actors or opposing agriculture. They’re about recognizing the physical realities of a small peninsula with limited infrastructure and asking how much additional commercial activity it can reasonably absorb.
Cary my exact thoughts!
As it relates to agritourism, and I think that’s the conundrum you are describing, it may be helpful to categorize it; low-impact marketing activities (as allowed at the state level through GAAMPs) and agritourism-as-a destination (or as Amanda describes it, party barns and wedding factories). As for the former, I can get behind “activities such as promotional and educational events including, but not limited to farm tours, demonstrations, cooking and other classes utilizing farm products and farm-to table dinners” (GAAMPs). If you haven’t been following the Agricultural Advisory Committee, I would encourage you to do so. A subcommittee produced a solid agritourism definition (because one does not exist at the state level) that had broad support. It currently sits with the Planning Committee but you can read the text here: https://farmoldmission.com/resources/agricultural-advisory-committee/
Just to prove that alignment has no bearing on the decision Peterson made, I was also a long time supplier of tart and sweet cherries to them and I received the same letter you received even though we were in alignment on farmer related issues. I was not a happy camper but I did not blame Cheryl or Bern.
Amanda,
Your essay talks about people being mistakenly afraid. Respectfully, no one is afraid. Our emotion is disappointment. We’re disappointed by exploiters. Disappointed by those who bought farmland and PDR land, but now want to turn it into commercial event sites. Disappointed by those who forget Peninsula taxpayers paid $25,000,000 in PDR taxes to preserve farmland. Disappointed by those who want to commercialize PDR land and use PDR money to pay off WOMP. Disappointed by those who ignore the planning and zoning efforts of generations of Peninsula residents. Disappointed that farmland preservation, rural quality of life, small township values are not respected by winery business operators. Your articulate letter expresses lofty thoughts but what you want is WOMP’s “5 acre plan”. It’s disappointing.
Grant Parsons
Respectfully, Grant, this still misstates what I wrote. “Afraid” was rhetorical shorthand for concern about what Old Mission could lose if farmland is preserved in name but farming is made less viable in practice; it was not a claim about anyone’s private emotional state.
I did not dismiss preservation concerns. I expressly acknowledged the legitimacy of wanting to protect the Peninsula from speculative development and to defend quality of life, natural resources, and rural character.
Nor did I argue for commercializing PDR land or disregarding the work of prior generations. I described PDR as visionary and argued that preservation only works if the economic viability of farming is not constrained after the fact.
And no, the essay does not boil down to WOMP’s “5 acre plan.” It calls for clear standards, legitimate agricultural activity by right, and governance that protects neighbors while preserving farm viability.
So disagreement is fair, but it should be with what I actually wrote, and not with a version of it recast as support for exploitation.
A
It might be helpful to disclose what you want to do with your agricultural land. The uses by right in the Agriculture Section of the ordinance are intact with 19 items allowed, including processing for wholesale. There are another 20 things allowed with a special use permit, including golf courses and processing with retail. The Ag. Section begins on page 47 of the ordinance and can be found on the township website.