ROGERS CITY — The Rogers City City Council has directed the city’s Planning Commission to hold a public hearing to determine whether lakeside lots owned by the city’s Downtown Development Authority should be rezoned for residential housing.

The five so-called Lakeview lots are located along Lakeview Drive between State and Linden streets. Storm’s Ice, Darga Forest Products, Ken’s Oil, and the Kiwanis Park were previously located there.

The city recently received three offers on the properties:

Two offers came from potential developers and one from a group of residents who want to purchase the properties because they only want homes to be developed there.

Displeased with the Planning Commission’s decision last week to hold off on making a decision on selling the properties until an environmental assessment could be completed, the homeowners brought the matter before the City Council.

The residents would like to see the property zoned for residential use instead of its current zoning, which allows for adult foster care facilities, parks, cemeteries, and recreational vehicle parks.

“Our biggest concern was the rumor of the RV park coming in,” resident Pearl Tulgetske said, adding that the pollution an RV park would bring to her neighborhood would be “disastrous and unhealthy.”

Richard Tulgetske said that, if residents owned the property, they could have the property marked and listed for sale with a real estate agent.

“At least we would have control of seeing the site plan, seeing the building plan, just like the city, and we could say, ‘No, that’s not going to meet our standards, so we’re not going to sell this property,'” he said.

Property owner Rick Newman told the council the residents want to be good stewards of the neighborhood.

“We’re concerned about the bike trail and the people who use that, as well,” he said. “We want to keep this a quiet, safe neighborhood where everybody enjoys the nature trail. People use that thing all hours of the day and night and we just want to preserve it and be the best stewards we can.”

City Manager Joe Hefele explained that the Planning Commission would determine the best use for the properties.

“The whole goal here is the Planning Commission is going to sit down and decide what is the most appropriate use of that land,” he said.

The Planning Commission would make a recommendation to the City Council for a final decision.

Hefele said that, because the DDA owns the property, it would ultimately be up to that organization to decide to whom to sell the properties.

He said the DDA has a grant to complete the environmental assessment for the property, which city officials anticipate will be complete in December.

Crystal Nelson can be reached at cnelson@thealpenanews.com or 989-358-5687.