Peninsula Township approves revised Kelley Park boat launch engineering work

Peninsula Township trustees approved additional engineering work on a revised Kelley Park boat launch plan that is designed to avoid the wetland impacts that helped sink the original proposal. For boaters on the north end of the Old Mission Peninsula, the change keeps a public launch alive at Kelley Park, but it does not erase the delay or the permit fight now surrounding the site.

The earlier design would have disturbed 0.27 acres of the property’s 0.32-acre delineated wetland, according to township records and zoning board materials. At the Oct. 15, 2024, meeting of the Peninsula Township Zoning Board of Appeals, staff said the township was seeking a variance to build a parking lot and launch within a wetland setback where 25 feet is required. Merjent, Inc. concluded the wetland was of low quality because it was dominated by cattails, but state review still forced the township back to the drawing board.

Township engineers also told officials that the north side of the Kelley Park site would require less dredging than the south side, which is why that location was favored. The new engineering work is aimed at keeping the launch in that lower-impact area while avoiding the wetland trouble that caused the first version to run into opposition.

Kelley Park has been part of a much longer public-access push on the peninsula. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources bought the property in 2015, and Peninsula Township leases it from the state. Township documents say the 2024 Master Plan supports a boat launch there, and the township has described the project as a long-awaited effort to restore boating access on the north end of the peninsula.

The project has also carried a complicated utility and funding trail. Township parks minutes from November 2024 said Consumers Power installed electrical cabling across Kelley Park years earlier for a housing development that never happened, and some of that infrastructure still serves homes north of the property. Engineers were trying to make minor changes that would reduce the cost of moving some of those lines. Township records also show the work has been backed by remaining ARPA funds, private donations, a DNR Waterways Grant and Grand Traverse County support of $25,000 a year for five years.

The township board voted in November 2023 to sign the Waterways Grant Agreement with the DNR and hired Beckett & Raeder to work with township engineer Gourdie-Fraser. By April 8, 2025, the joint permit application had been submitted to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But by March 25, 2026, township parks committee minutes said all Kelley Park plans were on hold pending an administrative law judge’s decision after EGLE denied the permit.