The Theme of Diversity and a Healthy Balance
The need for the theme of diversity and a healthy balance is ushering us into a period of new decision-making by the Council, and the public, with elections coming in November.
How will all the issues of public lands, job employment, and honest assessment of what the community needs now and in the future play themselves out? There are complex issues on the table for South Haven now, and further into the 21st century.
Will it retain the Master Plan identity of a small town - quaint and beautiful? Or will it ’sell its soul’ to overdevelopment of condos galore, a theme recently explored by Annie Brown in her opinion column in The Herald-Palladium, published on July 26, 2007, with the title: “South Haven might as well change its name to Condovia.”
Along with writing about the state of South Haven at present, with over 800 requests for condominium units having been approved, Annie also looked at the past, when the River Noire was placed on old US maps that are lodged at such places at Jefferson’s Monticello and George Washington’s Mt. Vernon.
Writing about the seven plans the Dunkley Street area and “the eastern banks of the historic River Noire,” Annie writes “Four plans cry out for more growth in the form of hotels, condominiums, boat slips and a water park. But three plans, submitted by the Parks Commission, Cool Cities and Celery Pond Advocates…would keep public lands in public hands. Those three plans with vision are crafted on foundations of arts, culture, recreation and eco-tourism with facilities like a kayaking path, art center, educational center and nature preserve that are open to all families from all walks of life.”
“The glistening emerald of the Dunkley Street area is the Celery Pond.”
Remembering too the heritage of horticultural history, Annie writes: “That high-pitched whir you hear over the sound of dump trucks and backhoes in South Haven is the sound of Stanley Johnston and Liberty Hyde Bailey spinning in their graves. Those South Haven men who became world-famous horitculturists and scientists would be heartbroken at the lack of environmental vision of city council members and our city manager.”
As to the issue of economic development and ultimately jobs, she moves toward her conclusion: “Regardless of economic impact, the Dunkley Street plan should be a plan that is open and available to a wide diversity of families. A healthy community is one with economic and racial diversity in all neighborhoods. This land should be developed as Johnston and Bailey would’ve wanted it - as a sprawling, green educational park with open vistas that are unobstructed by multi-story monuments to municipal greed.”
“As many of South Haven’s wise leaders said at the July 9 city council meeting, once you give city park land away, you can never recapture it. Like an emerald that’s tossed into Lake Michigan, it’s gone for good.”
Annie Brown lives in South Haven with her husband and three children.
