Leelanau County planners have given their endorsement to Empire Township's proposed new zoning ordinance.

At its regular monthly meeting last week, the county planning commission voted unanimously to recommend that the Empire Township Board adopt its new zoning ordinance along with a few changes recommended by county officials.

The director of the county Planning and Community Development department, Trudy Galla, recommended that Empire planners consider adding language addressing “sexually oriented businesses,” strengthen language addressing “non-conforming lot sizes,” and consider adding definitions of terms such as “rural character,” among other changes.

“Overall, the ordinance appears well written,” Galla told county planners at their Dec. 17 meeting.

County Planning Commission chairman Greg Julian commented that the comprehensive rewrite of Empire Township’s proposed zoning ordinance “was a good example of the commitment it takes from township officials and the community to prepare such a document.”

Empire Township zoning administrator Toni Perfect attended the county planning commission meeting and noted that township planners “went through the revision process several times,” according to minutes. The entire process took a couple of years to complete, he said.

“There was a paid consultant, and the township gathered ideas from early sessions with the public, and based on the master plan,” Perfect said, according to minutes.

The Leelanau County Board of Commissioners’ representative on the planning commission, District No. 2 commissioner Mark Walter, offered a motion recommend that Empire Township adopt the new zoning ordinance. Seconded by Sander Scott, the motion carried unanimously on a voice vote.

Also at last week’s meeting, planning commissioners noted that the December meeting would be the last for Scott as well as commission member Karen Paulus. Also in attendance at the meeting were Jerry Bergman of Suttons Bay Township and Charles Godbout of Empire Township, who are slated to be sworn in as new members of the county planning commission in January.