The Leelanau County Planning Commission last week recommended that Kasson Township approve its proposed definition of the word "park" for the township's zoning ordinance.

The need to define the word came up after the excavating and paving firm Elmer’s proposed creation of a new gravel pit in Kasson Township immediately adjacent to land owned by the National Park Service in the Bow Lake area.

Normally, the setback for a gravel pit in Kasson Township is 90 feet – except if the gravel pit is to be located near a church or a park when the zoning ordinance requires a setback of 500 feet.

Planning Commission chairman Greg Julian explained that Elmer’s owns property near Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, knows that it is a park and that the township’s “Gravel Ordinance” called for a 500-foot setback from parks.

“When they decided to begin extraction (of gravel) on this piece, they went to the township and told them that they were going to begin extraction and planned to extract up to 90 feet from the bordering park property,” according to minutes of the April 22 Planning Commission meeting. “Elmer’s claimed that there was no church and there was no park – just a piece of property that the National Park Service owned.”

Kasson Township’s proposed new definition will make it clear to Elmer’s exactly what is meant by a park, Julian said. Now a park can be land “provided or set aside by a governmental body, for the purposes of rest, play, recreation, enjoyment or assembly for the public…”

A motion by Planning Commission member Don Miller to approve Kasson Township’s new zoning ordinance definition was supported by Tom MacDonald and carried in an 8-0 vote. Absent were commission members Kathy Turner, Michael Long and Mark Walter, who serves as the county Board of Commissioners’ District No. 2 representative on the Planning Commission.

In other business at its regular monthly meeting last week, the county Planning Commission:

• Learned that they will likely review a draft Master Plan update for the county Parks and Recreation Commission after a final public input meeting on the plan, tentatively slated for May 28.

• Learned that a “Kids Fishing Day” will be held June 29 at the ponds on the former Veronica Valley golf course. The county is in the process of acquiring the property for use as a county park.