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At a special meeting tonight, the Cleveland Township Board unanimously passed a moratorium on any applications for zoning or building in the Business 1 and Business 2 zoning districts until Aug. 4, with the option to extend for another six months. The Planning Commission meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 5, has been cancelled. That moratorium stops, for now, a proposed Dollar General development at the corner of Maple City Road and Cemetery Road in Cleveland Township.

Twice in 2019 Dollar General tried to build stores in Leelanau County. Twice the discount chain goliath was defeated by local zoning and citizen opposition. Leelanau remains the only county in Michigan without a discount chain store. Midwest V, the same company that targeted Maple City and Empire six years ago, now wants to build a dollar store at the corner of Maple City Road and Cemetery Road in Cleveland Township — 0.6 miles north of downtown Maple City. The Cleveland Township Planning Commission will hold a public hearing about the proposed development on Wednesday, Feb. 5, at 7 pm at the Township Hall.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is putting the brakes on its planned 4.5-mile extension of the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail, which was to run near Little Traverse Lake and conclude at Good Harbor Trail. National Lakeshore superintendent Scott Tucker announced the news today during a press conference at Park headquarters in Empire. (Click here to watch a livestream of the news conference.) The National Lakeshore is pausing the design of Segment 9 following months of conversations with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, which opposes the route of the extension and which sent a letter of concern on Aug. 26 to Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland and U.S. Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow.

An important question hovers over the Leelanau Conservancy’s push to build a 10-car parking lot east of Wheeler Road, which mountain bikers will use starting next year to access the expanding Palmer Woods trail network. Neighbors opposed the initiative, but the Cleveland Township Board sided with the Conservancy and greenlit the project on Nov. 14. Do mountain bike trails and infrastructure in preserved natural areas reflect development (most mountain bikers drive fossil fuel-burning cars to access trails)? Or does the sport increase environmental awareness? In other words, does mountain biking compromise or help the environment?

After a year-long process, preliminary design for the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail from County Road 669 to County Road 651 is wrapping up and a trail alignment is being recommended for consideration by Cleveland and Centerville Townships. The recommended trail alignment will be presented by OHM Advisors at the Cleveland Township Board meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 10 at 7 pm. The Township will then vote on a resolution on whether or not to support the recommended alignment within Cleveland Township.