Leelanau Township is one step closer to approving a zoning tweak that would significantly expand agritourism opportunities for farms operating within its boundaries.

On May 23, the Leelanau Township Planning Commission held a public hearing for a long-gestating text amendment to its zoning ordinance. If approved and adopted, the new rules would allow farmers in the township to offer “farmstays,” defined in a draft version of the amendment as “a building or place that provides temporary or short-term accommodation to paying guests on a working farm as a secondary business to primary production.” In essence, farmstays would enable eligible farms to host guests overnight, adding a new element to local agritourism and giving visitors another option for accommodations.

“The intent of this zoning provision is to support the economic sustainability and resiliency of local farming by allowing flexibility for a farmer to meet changes in market, social and environmental conditions through agricultural tourism, and accessory uses compatible with the rural character of the township,” reads a section of the amendment.

Beyond helping farms survive by providing another source of income, the ordinance also identifies several other goals – such as preserving open space and farmland, maintaining the township’s “agricultural heritage and rural character,” and creating “working classrooms to educate school children and other residents and tourists about agriculture and related activities.”

Philip Hallstedt of Northport’s Hallstedt-Homestead Cherries has been championing the concept of farmstays for years. Speaking to the Leelanau Ticker in 2021, Hallstedt argued that allowing farms to offer even “a limited number of campsites would enable families to see the workings of a farm, and it would be an important stable source of revenue [for farms] to offset the uncertainty of crop production.”

Hallstedt tells the Leelanau Ticker he’s thrilled about last week’s public hearing, and not just because planning commissioners “unanimously agreed to move forward with finalizing edits based on discussions.”

“The meeting went really well, with lots of support from local Leelanau Township farmers,” Hallstedt says, referencing endorsements from other area agricultural players like Jim Bardenhagen of Bardenhagen Farms in Lake Leelanau, Gene and Kathy Garthe of Garthe Farm in Northport, and John Sommavilla, formerly the CEO of Shoreline Fruit and now the owner of an independent local farm stand.

“In the past five-plus years or more, prices on trying to keep our cherry farms going has increased tremendously, and the prices we get for our fruit has definitely not increased enough to keep farming,” wrote Rick and Nancy Deering, a pair of local cherry farmers, in a letter of support for the amendment. “We need to generate income from other options to be able to keep farming in the future. Both of us have had to work other jobs to be able to keep the farms… We want to keep [our farm] in the family, but we need to have another source of income to pay the taxes on it.”

As drafted, the text amendment would only allow farmstays on “working farms” – defined as “parcel(s) actively devoted to agricultural use, on which an owner, farm manager and/or operator is engaged in the growing, raising, and producing of farm products on more than 50 percent of the farm’s tillable acreage. The working nature of the farm must be demonstrated such that the township agrees it is satisfactory.”

Beyond proving their “working farm” bona-fides, farmers would be subject to site plan review and special use permit approval by the planning commission. Farmstays would only be allowed on farm parcels “of 40 acres or greater,” with each operation limited to a maximum of four campsites or rooms. Permitted accommodations could include standard collapsible tents, “vehicular-type structures” – like motorhomes or RVs – or “a hard-sided tent or shelter that is less than 400 square feet in area.” Maximum capacity would be “two adults per room or site, excluding dependent children.”

The draft amendment also sets rules for buffers, parking, septic systems, recreational fires on farmstay sites, noise control measures (including 10pm-7am quiet hours), the availability of potable water sources, disposal of garbage or refuse, and more. The proposed zoning change takes several cues from local short-term rental ordinances, such as specifying that a site or room “may not be occupied by a party for more than 30 days” and requiring the parcel owner and/or farm manager/operator “to reside or be available on the property 24/7” and “to enforce all conditions above.”

Hallstedt, who worked closely with Leelanau Township to draft the amendment, says the measure “is intentionally restrictive and incorporates feedback from the last three-plus year of championing this effort.” He believes the amendment addresses concerns some community members raised around parties, noise, traffic, overcrowding, trespassing, smoke, and more.

“The uproar of Timber Shores and other high-density, high-impact commercial activities guided me in making this effort limited in scope yet trying to provide an option for working farms to generate additional on-farm income to strengthen them financially,” Hallsted says.

Planning commissioners will now take public feedback from last week’s meeting and use it to “further refine the language working with a zoning expert,” Per Hallstedt.

“There were some suggestions which are good, such as having no gas or diesel generators [on farmstay sites], or considering two farmstays for 20-acre farms, three for 30 acres, and four for 40-plus acres,” Hallstedt adds.

More information on the farmstays proposal can be found on the Leelanau Township website, including a draft of the text amendment and Zoning Administrator Steve Patmore's report.