In Acme Township, the public may lose access to a seasonal section of Arnold Road, which leads to hundreds of acres of state forest near the VASA trail system.
The Grand Traverse County Road Commission is being asked to abandon the last half mile of Arnold Road, which is currently a public right of way.
The petitioners include the owners of the recently revamped golf course that owns land on both sides of Arnold Road, called High Pointe Golf Club, and the Department of Natural Resources, which manages the state forest that the road leads up to.
The petition submitted to the road commission states that “the DNR no longer desires to have an access at this location to State land” for various reasons, including that the “existing trail runs off state land and into private property,” the terrain is “prone to erosion,” the road is not suitable for logging operations, and that there are other access points to the state forest area.
However, neighbors and other nearby residents are uncertain about those other access points – the Arnold Road seasonal section is the only way many say they access the forest's trails, which they value in particular for horseback riding.
Vicki Beam, who lives nearby in Williamsburg, has explored the trails in this part of the state’s forest land for years. “It's a pretty amazing tract of land,” she said. “It’s quiet. We don't have a whole lot of that left around here, and I think that's why we all live up here.”
High Pointe could not be reached for comment. The engineering firm they’ve worked with on the course, Jozwiak Consulting, penned the petition letter to the road commission.
The Grand Traverse County Road Commission will discuss the request at their monthly board meeting on Tuesday, August 20th, at 6pm.
The board can decide to approve the request, deny it, or put the matter up to a public hearing. The meeting will be open to the public and held at the Road Commission Office in Traverse City.