Traverse City commissioners will consider adding a proposal to the November 3 ballot that would protect 3.6 acres of parkland at Grand Traverse Commons.

The proposal would request voter approval to place a conservation easement on property adjacent to Silver Drive (the road that connects Silver Lake Road with Grand Traverse Commons). The 3.6 acres would be protected as undeveloped, natural parkland in perpetuity, with the city banned from developing the site in any way. In a memo to city commissioners, City Manager Marty Colburn explained that the easement was designed to offset "prior wetland impacts due to the construction of Silver Drive...by providing ecological benefits." In order to construct Silver Drive in 2011, according to Colburn, city officials agreed to Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) requirements that the city perform wetland mitigation in the surrounding area, and also put a conservation easement on all mitigation areas.

"Because the property where the wetland mitigation areas are located is city parkland, it is not possible for the city to grant this (conservation easement) without first submitting the question to a vote of the electors," Colburn wrote. Traverse City's charter requires a three-fifths vote for the disposition of city parkland.

Colburn noted that if city commissioners chose not to purse a ballot proposal, or if such a proposal failed at the polls, city staff were "working to identify alternative locations for wetland mitigation and placement of a conservation easement that would satisfy the state's requirements." Going that route, however, would "necessitate additional costs, because the mitigation requirements that have been initiated already would need to start anew at the alternative location," wrote Colburn.

Traverse City commissioners meet at 7pm tonight (Monday) at the Governmental Center.