Tree tempest: Residents protest road commission to save canopy; Park Township, MI

Tree tempest: Residents protest road commission to save canopy - Holland, MI - The Holland Sentinel:
Park Township, MI — Lakeshore Drive residents want to save 10 young maples and with them, the tree canopy-covered roadway reminiscent of scenic stretches of Northern Michigan.

“We have a little portion of M-22 — just a taste of it — and that asset should be preserved,” said Dan Zwier, a landscape architect who lives in the Maple Beach neighborhood in Park Township that planted the trees along Lakeshore Drive.

But the Ottawa County Road Commission’s policy calls for no new trees within the public right of way. On Lakeshore, that means they can’t be planted closer than 33 feet from the middle of the road.

So even though the new trees are 3 feet farther from the street and behind the existing tree line, the Road Commission wrote the residents to ask that the trees be removed or relocated.