The state owns 12.3% of the land and inland waters that make up Michigan.
What it does with it is, in part, up to you.
Disagreements over the use of this land are older than some of Michigan's state forests, some of it regrown after clear-cutting by the lumber industry in the 1800s.
A fundamental one is bound to emerge, according to state and local officials, as well as representatives of business, preservation and environmental groups, as the state begins to reconsider its overall strategy and solicits public input.
Does the state own too much land, and is it unfair to local communities who cannot develop it to support their tax base?
At the same time, recreation groups will seek to maintain access to the vast lands, and conservation and environmental groups are pushing for a greater recognition of the intrinsic value of open spaces, which, some assert, has been reinforced by the coronavirus pandemic.
“You are going to see some or all of that play out again,” said Rep. Gary Howell, R-North Branch, whose legislation in 2018 eventually helped free the state from a proposed cap on its 4.6 million acres of holdings. It also required a reconsideration of the overall strategy, which will go before the Legislature for approval next year.
“To get this done, obviously there was a lot of negotiating and a lot of compromising,” Howell said. “Some of them will be back to argue their positions again.
“You’re going to find the folks, particularly government officials in northern Michigan, who want to see an even tougher provision about payment in lieu of tax guarantees,” he said, referring to the payments some local communities receive from the state for use of the land.
More: Want a piece of land? Michigan has parcels for sale
“You will see many of the people in the environmental and natural resources community perhaps on the other side, saying, wait a minute, we don’t want to give up the acquisition of a prime piece of outdoors land just because the state has failed to make a tax payment.”
The state will sell some land, starting with small parcels in Clare, Gladwin, Lapeer and Shiawassee counties, beginning Sept. 8. Land in 15 additional counties, about 200 parcels in total, will be offered through Oct. 15.
The Parks and Recreation Division of DNR appropriated about $97 million for the current fiscal year to “operate, maintain, develop and restore/renovate State Parks,” said Scott Whitcomb, the department's senior adviser for wildlife and public lands.
Appropriations for the state parks have increased slightly in recent years, he said.
“Data on maintenance expenditures were not readily available for other DNR facilities like forests or wildlife areas,” Whitcomb said. “But state parks is a good indication of the overall amount because they have the bulk of public use facilities.”
As it reviews the strategy for state public lands, adopted after the legislation of 2013, in advance to resubmitting it in 2021, the state is actively seeking participation from the public, as well as local governments and business, recreation, preservation and environmental groups.
The DNR asks the public to be part of the process at Michigan.gov/PublicLands, where residents can use an interactive map to drop a pin on the state public lands they value most.
“We really want to know what access to these lands means to them and to their family and friends, because their candid answers will assist us in developing the updated strategy," Whitcomb said.
Up North, there is a tension between providing the tourism that yields economic growth and using property for purposes that might yield far more in tax revenue for the host communities.
“It’s been kind of a point of consternation for a long time in a lot of rural areas, not just our rural area, because the state hasn’t done a really good job of making those communities whole,” said Jeff Hagan, chief executive officer of Eastern Upper Peninsula Regional Planning in Sault Ste. Marie.
Payments in lieu of taxes to affected local communities were suspended by the state during the Granholm administration, and communities have long complained of payments that are too little and late.
“In some instances, you’ll have a small township, where a majority of the property is owned by the state,” Hagan said. “They really don’t have any property tax generation. That’s where you’ll find this payment in lieu of taxes really important for these small areas that have a lot of public lands.”
In Mackinac County, immediately north of the Mackinac Bridge, where there were 11 people per square mile in 2010 and lots of the Lake Superior State Forest, there is concern about how the state uses what it has — and how it helps those affected.
“In general, up here, there is a resentment regarding DNR’s purchase of so much property,” said Jim Hill, chairman of the Mackinac County Board of Commissioners. “It cuts into the development of some of these communities that have very little taxable value to begin with. So that’s not popular.
“Payment in lieu of taxes is, of course, huge for some of these townships that have such small population,” Hill said. “It really is probably the biggest part of their revenue.”
Mackinac County includes about 650 million acres, of which about 218 million are owned by the state.
In 2019, it received $929,413 in payments in lieu of taxes.
The state owns about 60% of Roscommon County, in central lower Michigan and paid the county about $1.04 million in lieu of taxes last year.
Luce County is about 52% state-owned and received about $1.2 million. Crawford County is about 49% state-owned and received $864,760.
The Michigan Townships Association met with DNR officials in June to review the current strategy.
“What we have focused on is that the state should work in collaboration with local governments,” said Judy Allen, director of government relations for the association, which has made all members aware of the reviews. “I’ve seen it progress, since 2012, in that direction.”
The state also has contacted the Michigan Association of Counties about its review of public lands.
“The DNR has done a very good job on outreach,” said Deena Bosworth, director of governmental affairs for the association.
“Disposing of excess land is something that is important to the counties, particularly counties that have a lot of land tied up in state and federal government ownership,” Bosworth said. "Handing it over to a private entity, not a nonprofit that doesn’t have to pay taxes, mind you, increases the tax rolls for them. It helps us provide the services that we need.”
Payments in lieu of taxes are “less than what would be paid if it was under private ownership, or available for development, which would also increase different kinds of other economic activity,” she said.
Large portions of the state lands are for recreation, and there are concerns about how the strategy affects those areas.
Amy Trotter, executive director of Michigan United Conservation Clubs, which is among the organizations consulted by DNR, said the continued lifting of the state ownership cap is important. But it is also key for the state to know how the land is used, or could be used.
“We’re asking hunters and anglers to look at the places of public land that they most often use and see what the proposals are in terms of adjusting those boundaries, and just see if that makes sense to them,” Trotter said.
“Because, by and large, there’s going to be a proposal, not to shrink the ownership currently, but to shrink the boundaries for where they target those new acquisitions. It’s not selling off the lands, it is shrinking the possibilities from which they could grow.”
For the Michigan Snowmobile and ORV Association, the use of state land presents an internal issue.
The state recently opened land to off-road vehicles, which sometimes compete in the winter with snowmobiles for trails, which snowmobiling groups maintain, or pay to maintain.
The association is working with DNR to fashion a remedy and protect its members use of the trails.
“We’re working collectively with DNR to keep motorized recreation in the forefront of the land use,” said Karen Middendorp, executive director of the Michigan Snowmobile and ORV Association in Wyoming.
“We certainly don’t want to lose our access," she said. "But we also know that there’s a lot of people who don’t want to hear our motors. We need to be conscious of that as well.”
Conservation groups, participants in the original strategy and consulted again by DNR for the review, seek to stress the value of the land, as it is.
“The hardest part, and I think the department is going to try to capture this in this iteration of the plan, is there are a lot of benefits that we get from public lands that are not an easy way to put an economic value on them,” said Rich Bowman, director of working lands for The Nature Conservancy in Michigan..
“Half of Michigan is covered by forest and it doesn’t really matter who owns those forests, whether it is public, private or whatever it is, those forests help us filter our water and keep it clean for drinking and for the Great Lakes,” Bowman said. “They capture and absorb a huge amount of carbon out of the atmosphere and really offset other emissions.
“Those are additional benefits that we get from public lands that we want to make sure we recognize," he said.
The land provides “natural capital,” said Nick Occhipinti, the government affairs director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters.
“Particularly during the lockdown and the sequestration, I found it not only critical for my physical health, but for my spiritual and mental well-being, to be able to walk to my nearby park and to have some access to some green space, to have some access to Lake Michigan and a critical dune area there, and to just recharge,” Occhipinti said.
“I think something that is really present on our minds is nature as respite, as solace, as joy.”
The value of conservation was demonstrated by the failures of the Edenville and Sanford Dams near Midland in May, Occhipinti said.
The catastrophe would have been far worse, he said, if not for preservation of wetlands and woodlands that at least partially absorbed the bulging Tittabawassee River.
“We’re going to pay particular attention to bringing the lens of natural capital on the state of Michigan," Occhipinti said, "and say, what ecosystem services are our public lands delivering Michiganders right now that need to be recognized, monetized and elevated in the strategy.”
gkrupa@detroitnews.com
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