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Muskegon residents 'frustrated beyond words' over Pere Marquette project

A letter from state environmental regulators outlined several concerns regarding construction at Pere Marquette Park.

MUSKEGON, Mich. — It's Muskegon locals versus the city they call home. Several viewers have reached out, concerned a recently completed construction project may have dodged state law.

They told 13 On Your Side the project in question, launched several years prior along the beachhead, should never have gotten the city’s okay.

“The community that shares this beach is frustrated beyond words.”

It’s hard for this Muskegon couple to hide their frustration over what’s happened to one of their favorite places. They asked for their names and faces not to be shared.

“They cut into the dune, removed dune grass and vegetation,” he said. “All of these things are not supposed to be allowed.”

And with its famous breakwater light and two and a half miles of rolling lakefront beaches, Pere Marquette Park undoubtedly factors into Muskegon’s moniker as the Shoreline City.

Much of the park has been designated a critical dune area, which means any work must follow a special set of rules outlined in the Dune Protection Act of 1994.

But, the sandy sprawl of shipping containers, roll gates and railings erected in recent years, which now comprise the newly expanded Deck restaurant had some wondering whether the city was playing by the same rulebook.  

It was a concern state environmental regulators seemed to share.

In a letter obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request and forwarded to 13 On Your Side, the Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy alluded to a prior audit, noting incomplete or nonexistent applications and missing permits dating back at least two years.

Regulators also said the city had failed to account for the project’s impact on pristine public land, requiring a test concerning both temporary and long-lasting effects of the building’s expanded footprint.

Muskegon argued the property had been grandfathered in under existing use.

A 30-year-old aerial image referenced by the state showed the property’s boundaries had surpassed that proverbial line in the sand.

Credit: EGLE/Callen Engineering

Muskegon City Manager Frank Peterson was named in the letter.

He couldn’t be reached for comment as of the time of publication Wednesday, but revealed to 13 On Your Side during a phone conversation earlier in the week that Muskegon utilized an outside firm to process the applications and believed it was in compliance.

Peterson said any perceived problems had likely popped up following the planning phase during construction.

“This whole project has been fishy from the beginning,” he said. “They gave away all that land to this restaurant… essentially, they doubled the footprint of this of this business with no additional benefits to the city of Muskegon.”

In an emailed reply to 13 On Your Side’s request for comment, EGLE deferred to Muskegon for questions involving local zoning issues.

The agency clarified, however, that the city had yet to act on its requests for additional assurances and a new application package.

The clock’s ticking on that ask; planners were given a 60-day deadline and have only a single month remaining to shore things up, or, EGLE related, its authority to do so will revert back to the state.

“If we build a new fence, and we don't get a permit from the city of Muskegon, they're pounding on the door,” he related. “The feeling that we have now is that we were cheated, cheated by some city staff who was supposed to be there to take care of that beach that didn't.”

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