City Commissioners Appoint Two Planning Members Amid Diversity Debate

The two people who will vote on whether your street gets a drive-through, denser housing, or new short-term rental caps were confirmed when city commissioners seated Michelle Reardon and Megan Holtrey on the Traverse City planning commission by a 6-1 margin, after a pointed debate about who the board actually represents.

Reardon brings the sharpest land-use credentials of the six candidates the city interviewed. As the former planning and zoning director for Peninsula Township, one of the region's most development-pressured municipalities, she oversaw decisions about density, lot use, and commercial encroachment that mirror the cases now building on the city's agenda. She currently works for PACE North. Holtrey, operations manager at the Dennos Museum Center, fills the second vacancy and brings an institutional, neighborhood-character perspective to a board that will spend the next two years reshaping what can be built where in Traverse City.

Both were recommended by an ad hoc committee that included Commissioner Lance Boehmer, Mayor Amy Shamroe, and Commissioner Jackie Anderson. Shamroe and Boehmer supported the picks. Anderson did not.

Anderson, who also sits on the planning commission as one of two city commission representatives, raised a pointed objection before the vote: the board is becoming unfairly skewed both geographically and professionally, she said, and she questioned its age makeup. Other commissioners pushed back, arguing that sorting volunteers into demographic categories risks discouraging the public service the board depends on. Under Michigan law, the mayor formally appoints planning commission members and a majority of commissioners confirms them; years of past disputes over mayoral picks prompted Traverse City to create the current ad hoc interview process.

Anderson's concern goes unresolved. The departing members, David Knapp and Jess Heller, leave behind terms running through November 2028, so Reardon and Holtrey will be in place for an unusually dense stretch of consequential votes. Two additional seats, held by Vice-Chairperson Brian McGillivary and Secretary Shea O'Brien, expire this November, giving the commission another immediate test of whether its geographic and professional concentration narrows or widens.

The decisions ahead are not procedural. The planning commission is working toward a full rewrite of the city's zoning ordinance, which will set rules for housing density, accessory dwelling units, and lot sizes across Traverse City's residential neighborhoods. Also pending: new commercial zoning standards for drive-throughs and car washes, thrust to the front of the queue by a proposal to build a Tommy's Express Car Wash at the high-profile East Front Street and Garfield corner. Short-term rental caps for commercial districts remain unfinished business from a prior planning cycle.

Reardon's direct experience in municipal zoning administration makes her an immediate voice on all of those questions. How her views align with the rest of the reconstituted board will become clear quickly.