Old Mission farmer says township raised winery acreage rules after land purchase

Garry Mannor says Peninsula Township changed the winery rules after he had already bought land to comply, turning a 45-acre Old Mission grape farm into a new flashpoint over who the peninsula’s preservation policies actually protect.

In an April 7, 2025 letter to the Peninsula Township Agricultural Committee, Mannor said he bought the first 20 acres of the farm in 2000, when the township required 20 acres for a winery. He said that threshold later rose to 40 acres, prompting him to buy another 25 acres so the family could still build the winery it had planned from the start.

Mannor wrote that surveys, winery plans and other paperwork were submitted in 2019. He said the family then spent the next three years waiting for an EGLE wastewater permit while also confronting more township rule changes, including Amendment 201. According to a township ordinance overview, Amendment 201 was adopted in December 2022 and now allows wineries without tasting rooms on 40 acres by right, indoor tasting rooms on 50 acres with a special use permit, and indoor tasting rooms with outdoor seating on 60 acres with a special use permit.

Mannor also said township officials later told him that an earlier PDR contract allowing a winery with tasting room and retail sales was no longer enforceable because of the township’s 201 changes. That argument has become central to a broader dispute on Old Mission Peninsula, where winery owners say the rules are shifting under family farms that already invested in land, buildings and permits.

The Old Mission Peninsula Wine Trail says the wineries have been working to preserve land in sustainable agriculture since the 1970s and have sought a clear ordinance since 2008. The group says the businesses pay more than $650,000 a year in property and personal property taxes, employ hundreds of workers and operate on more than 1,540 acres in active production. Winery advocates frame the fight as one over whether zoning is preserving farmland or making it harder for farm-based businesses to survive in Grand Traverse County.

The conflict has already reached the courts. In July 2025, Judge Paul K. Maloney awarded nearly $50 million in damages to Old Mission Peninsula wineries in the Western District of Michigan, and Peninsula Township filed an appeal in the Sixth Circuit in February 2026. Supporters of the township, including Protect The Peninsula, say the acreage rules and special-use-permit process are needed to guard against traffic, noise and overdevelopment, while winery owners argue the township is applying preservation policy unevenly and burdening small agricultural operators that helped define the peninsula’s landscape.