GO-REC closes to day use

Oct. 16—TRAVERSE CITY — Rotary Camps and Services has closed Greilick Outdoor Recreation and Education Center to day use in response to a lawsuit filed by some Rennie Lake waterfront owners.

The center, called GO-REC for short, recently announced as much on its website after people came to the spot previously open for hiking, disc golf and other activities, and were met with closed gates, said Jamie Lewis Hedges, GO-REC's director. A lot of people were asking why, he said.

"The short answer is, we have to get some zoning challenges taken care of with (East Bay) Township, which we are working through," he said.

Rotary Camps & Services' application for a planned unit development was spurred by a lawsuit filed by Protect Rennie Lake Inc., Hedges said. He referred questions about the case to attorney Jeffrey Jocks, who didn't return messages Friday.

GO-REC sits on a 500-acre former Boy Scouts camp that Rotary of Traverse City has owned since 1923, Hedges said. The Boy Scouts leased and managed the property for several decades until 2016. After that, Rotary Camps & Services opted to keep using the property for outdoor education, camping, cabin rentals and more.

"The uses that have been identified by the township as being grandfathered ... are focused on the camping and campground," he said. "So right now we are limited to offering our cabins and campsites for overnight rentals, and the people who use them have access to the amenities."

The dispute centers around public access to Rennie Lake through GO-REC's property. Protect Rennie Lake Inc., a nonprofit organization of waterfront owners on the lake, asks 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer to stop the center from allowing public access to the lake, and to cease any commercial use of the lake, including boat rentals to the public.

Allowing public access there could potentially overwhelm the small lake, causing negative impacts ranging from annoyances to waterfront owners to depriving them of use of the lake, from pollution to introducing invasive species, the waterfront owners group argued in court filings.

Dane Carey, an attorney for Protect Rennie Lake Inc., said the lawsuit's aim isn't to shutter GO-REC altogether. Many of the uses there are nonconforming — a zoning term for uses of a property that predate zoning rules that would otherwise ban them — and are therefore allowed.

"Our group doesn't want to stop GO-REC from doing anything that's allowable," he said.

Carey argued the organization can't use its property as a public access to the lake, not even through the planned unit development process.

"Our group is going to oppose that in any and all respects," he said.

Access on the site consists of an unimproved ramp at the end of a dirt trail that Carey said a car could possibly drive down. Protect Rennie Lake Inc. filed suit out of concern over the access becoming a "slippery slope" that could overwhelm the small lake.

East Bay's zoning administrator told Rotary Camps & Services in a letter that the buildings are either nonconforming or permitted by the township. The letter goes on to say that numerous uses, including outdoor education, are allowable but day uses need further permission.

Rotary Camps & Services in court filings argued it's not currently allowing public access to the lake at GO-REC — Hedges said boat rentals there are available only to overnight guests when the boats aren't being used for classes.

Matt McDonough, Rotary Camps & Services' executive director, said in a statement the organization remains committed to stewarding the resource and providing it as a place for all to experience the outdoors.

"While the litigation is unfortunate and seems to be based on inaccurate information, we are confident we are meeting all zoning and legal requirements for our current uses and in the process of getting approval for the additional activities that we have planned," he said.

Carey accused the organization of inaccuracies as well in denying its assertion that GO-REC's property was historically open for public access to the water and trails.

The organization in court filings rejected accusations from Protect Rennie Lake that it's operating an unlicensed marina at GO-REC, and that commercial uses there violate a conservation easement on the land.

Rather than allow "unlimited public access" to the lake for nonmotorized and motorized boats, as Protect Rennie Lake asserted, GO-REC's idea is to allow limited public access for nonmotorized boats that first would be washed in a boat wash station, Rotary Camps & Services argued in court filings.

Plus, Rotary Camps & Services argued, Protect Rennie Lake didn't — and can't — prove that the public would overwhelmingly seek out Rennie Lake using GO-REC when there are numerous other places to boat in Grand Traverse County. Nor does the lakefront owners group give any reason to believe that people aren't accessing the lake with outside boats via state forest land or rental properties, it argued.

Carey said Protect Rennie Lake members are aware of people using state forest land along the lakeshore as an informal access point, but it's not workable for anything but paddle craft, and not at a volume that would concern Protect Rennie Lake members.

A settlement conference is set for Dec. 6, but first, Carey said, Protect Rotary Lake and Rotary Camps & Services are set for mediation talks on Nov. 2.

"By and large, our group of owners don't want to get into the way of the good aspects of what GO-REC is trying to do here, but I don't want to get into any specifics about negotiations," he said.

For now, GO-REC still is available for overnight stays, Hedges said. Outdoor education classes are limited to either those who do stay or are taught online or elsewhere. That's disappointing for an organization that aims to create an accessible outdoor classroom, he added.