A UP town may repeal zoning. Doing so would benefit township trustee

Rock River Township will hold a hearing Monday about a proposal to repeal its zoning rules
The move comes as a township trustee sues the community over a zoning dispute
At issue is a parking lot that made it easier to access the Eben Ice Caves

An effort to expand parking access to the Upper Peninsula’s famed Eben Caves is splitting a tiny township, prompting accusations of dirty politics and favoritism among Rock River Township leaders.

A company owned by brothers who serve on the Board of Trustees and Planning Commission is suing the township over whether they have proper zoning permits to operate a 250-car lot near the caves that attract thousands of visitors each winter.

Now, the Alger County township is considering a full repeal of all zoning rules, after about 100 of the township’s 1,200 residents signed a petition seeking the change.

A public hearing is Monday at the township hall.

“It would be wrong to vote against holding a public hearing,” said Jim Rondeau, a township trustee and one of the brothers behind the parking lot.

He said their suit and the proposed zoning repeal are separate issues. Not everyone agrees.

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The Rondeau family is well-known in the community: The trustee’s brother Jon leads the township Planning Commission and his father Mickey serves on the Alger County Board of Commissioners.

“This is super dirty politics in a small town,” said Trevor Case, who resigned from the township board in 2024 over what he described as harassment from residents.

Township Trustee Victor Aho helped circulate the petition and made a motion to explore repealing all zoning.

He said the Rondeau family is not involved in the petition, but published reports indicate Jim Rondeau joined colleagues in August in voting to have a public hearing on the request.

Aho acknowledged the parking lot lawsuit played a role, but he said it was “just one issue that has brought this to a head.” He said enforcing zoning is too burdensome for the rural township and zoning debates are detracting from other concerns like maintaining community amenities like its ski hill.

“The cost-benefit was starting to outweigh itself,” Aho said.

The dispute is the latest involving the community. In 2024, Rock River made national news when state officials removed the township’s clerk and deputy for planning to hand-count ballots to safeguard against fraud, in violation of state law.

Michigan does not require townships to have zoning rules, and most without them have populations of less than 1,000 residents. Proponents of zoning say it allows communities to shape development; detractors say other rules are available.

Repealing zoning isn’t unprecedented: In Antrim County, Banks Township considered doing so following a push by a township trustee who wanted to open a gravel mine, but officials voted against the plan in March.

In Rock River, skeptics include former trustee Rowan Bunce. He worries that, without zoning, the township could struggle to contain development or handle emergency services and water, sewer and electrical infrastructure.

He also said he fears about the parking lot’s impact on the Rock River Canyon Wilderness in the Hiawatha National Forest.

“If there isn’t planning and zoning to help make some of those decisions in the long run, then what is the future in the township?” Bunce said.

Aho called that “a boogeyman, strawman tactic.” He said Rock River Township doesn’t have the infrastructure to support large-scale development and most of its acreage is state land, so he doesn’t expect data centers or anyone else to come knocking if zoning is removed.

“We really need to concentrate on the problems we have, not the problems we don’t have,” he said.

The parking lot went up in 2022. Rondeau said he and his family borrowed from their 401(k) accounts to build it and to turn the seasonal road leading into it into a year-round road. They erected a restroom and put up a place for visitors to donate money to help cover the cost of maintenance and plowing the road.

The brothers said they formed an LLC called Wilderness Canyon because they needed one to secure liability insurance on the property.

“That’s all this is, and it’s really frustrating that we cannot get anybody with any kind of integrity to show up and hear the truth,” Rondeau said.

Rondeau said he had all the proper permits at the time, but when the then-zoning administrator resigned and Case took over as acting zoning administrator, his file was lost.

“We have acted with nothing but integrity and honesty,” Rondeau said.

Case said the parking lot went in without the proper permits.

The former zoning administrator, Jason McCarthy, did not return a message seeking comment.

Rondeau and his brothers also want to erect what Rondeau called a warming shelter — but what Case and Bunce called a convenience store — on the parking lot premises.

Rondeau said the township’s outdated zoning ordinances make no mention of warming shelters, so he had to apply for a convenience store permit, but he plans to build a warming shelter.

“There’s no Walmart going up there,” he said.

Rondeau said he went through the normal zoning appeal process and the lawsuit was the next step after he exhausted all appeals.

He said the push to remove zoning is a grassroots effort not driven by his family.

The township has “almost no tax base,” Rondeau said. “So what happened is people see a big amount of money going out to police a zoning ordinance and they react, I can’t control that. That has nothing to do with what’s going on … It’s a stretch to even call this little gravel parking lot a business.”

Case sees it differently.

“If they would have done it the right way, they wouldn’t have had so much pushback,” he said. “None of those checkmarks have been checked.”