Don’t talk to Don Swanson about Door County’s long stretches of pristine shoreline, its pastoral beauty, its peace and quiet–and how it all could be destroyed by too much development.
“Do you know what Door County is? It’s snob appeal,” said Swanson, who owns the Village Shops, a new development of gift shops, offices and the obligatory espresso bar.
“People come to Door County to shop,” Swanson said. “The other stuff is secondary, the green space and all that other crap they are worried about.”
“They” include the Door County Chamber of Commerce, the environmental group Door Property Owners Inc. and local officials who support increased restrictions on commercial and residential development.
Their movement made headlines in August 1996, when the chamber took the unusual step of calling for a moratorium on new, large-scale construction until the popular vacation area enacts tougher zoning laws.
Since then, Egg Harbor has approved a one-year moratorium on commercial development while officials update the village’s comprehensive plan.
Other things have occurred, including the Town of Liberty Grove’s consideration of buying development rights to preserve undeveloped land. But other communities, including the Town of Egg Harbor, remain unzoned and wide open for development ranging from mansions to flea markets.
Chamber of Commerce officials and others said Door County depends on its natural beauty, small-town charm and peaceful atmosphere to attract vacationers.
The area could lose business–as well as its soul–if development continues unchecked, said Keith Van Dyke, chamber president.
“To me, the protection of the county long-term is in everybody’s interest,” said Van Dyke, who owns the Edgewater Resort in Ephraim and sits on the Egg Harbor Plan Commission.
Others, however, said development doesn’t threaten Door County and that current zoning controls are adequate.
“I’ve lived here 17 years. I understand the nature of what we have, and what we have to sell,” said James Sarkis, an Egg Harbor developer and real estate broker. “And nobody can explain to me how we have destroyed it.”
The chamber’s agenda was designed to build public support for a balance between development and preservation, said Karen Raymore, chamber executive director.
Raymore said chamber officials knew their stance would draw attention because it was coming from a group generally seen as opposed to additional zoning.
Six of Door County’s 14 towns, mainly south of Sturgeon Bay, have no zoning, and other communities have zoning ordinances of varying degrees.
The chamber called for imposition of development impact fees, which would pay for police, fire and other public services that additional development requires.
Condo hotels have grown steadily in Door County since the mid-1980s.
The chamber said Door County’s guest rooms increased from 3,400 in 1992 to 4,000 in 1996, with about half of the new rooms in condo hotels.
The condo hotels tend to be larger and more expensive than most Door County motels, Raymore said.
“Part of Door County’s charm is that there are a lot of mom-and-pop motels,” Raymore said. “It’s not all Holiday Inn and Sheraton. If we become nothing more than condo hotels, we lose a part of who we are.”
Sturgeon Bay-based Portside Properties Inc. has developed 10 condo hotels with around 700 units in Door County since 1982. Portside President Fran Shefchik said the condos are popular because they are an affordable alternative to buying a vacation home.
Also, the condo hotels provide large rooms with kitchens, a feature most Door County motels don’t offer.
Shefchik said Portside’s projects are designed to fit in with their surroundings.
In Egg Harbor, for example, Portside scaled down plans for its Newport Condominium Resort, which opened this summer.
Originally, Newport planned to have 110 condos. After negotiations with village officials, 93 condos were built, a project some critics said is still too large.
Shefchik said he generally doesn’t oppose more zoning, and said all communities in Door County should be zoned. Shefchik said identifying certain lands as available for development, and certain lands as off-limits, would be helpful to developers.
He said development pressures have increased in Door County.
“But overall, I don’t believe the county as a whole is overdeveloped,” he said. “I think supply and demand is going to take care of itself. I think you’re going to see a slowing in development.”
Portside, which opened two condo hotels this year, has no plans for additional developments, Shefchik said.
The chamber’s agenda is far from becoming a reality. But some steps have been taken during the last year.
Door Property Owners in April helped sponsor the Future Search conference, which brought together developers, property owners, environmentalists, elected officials and others who usually clash on development and zoning issues.
Future Search created some common themes, said Donna Lash, Door Property Owners executive director. They included the need for abundant open space and improved county-wide planning and zoning.
Another theme was the need for clustered development, in which single-family homes are clustered in one portion of a tract, leaving the remaining land as open space.
Traditional residential developments distribute lots evenly throughout a tract, which typically destroys groves of trees, wildflower patches and other attractive, natural features.
The Future Search process is continuing, Lash said, with her organization strongly promoting clustered development.
In other steps, the Town of Jacksonport has revived its Planning Committee. And the Town of Liberty Grove is studying the possibility of buying development rights to preserve open land.
“We’re trying to prevent Liberty Grove from becoming Wisconsin Dells North,” said Bill Casey, a town supervisor.
Most of the unzoned towns, however, haven’t moved to adopt zoning ordinances.
In the Town of Egg Harbor, some residents view zoning as potentially unfair to farmers and other land owners who might be prevented from developing their property, said Lash, who lives in the town.
Because land is available and the town is unzoned, a series of cheap-looking antique shops have sprouted along Highway 42 in the past five years, Lash said.
A zoning ordinance could have prevented the shops from being built, she said, which would have prevented the increased traffic and visual pollution created by such sprawling development.
At the very least, a zoning ordinance could have required aesthetic features and landscaping to make the shops more attractive, Lash said.
Meanwhile, Egg Harbor, along with unzoned towns such as Union and Gardner in southern Door County, remain vulnerable to a boom in residential development, Lash said.
All three towns have plenty of undeveloped land along the bluffs overlooking Green Bay, she said.
Long-range plans to widen Wisconsin Highway 57 to four lanes between Sturgeon Bay and Green Bay eventually could make home sites in southern Door County more attractive to commuters, Lash said.
Meanwhile, Egg Harbor has taken strong steps toward restricting development. Officials recently approved a one-year moratorium so the village’s comprehensive plan can be updated.
“The village had to take a breather,” said Van Dyke.
Much of the development pressure in Door County has been concentrated in Egg Harbor lately, Lash said.
That’s because of the availability of land compared to more densely developed communities such as Fish Creek, Ephraim and Sister Bay, she said.
“I think it’s just a matter of moving to where the new frontier is,” Lash said.
Van Dyke and Lash said pressure for a moratorium and plan update followed some recent developments they said were out of scale for the village, including Portside’s Newport project.
Lash also cited The Hill at Eames Farm condominium development.
The development, which replaced part of a cherry orchard, has 60 units on a hill overlooking Egg Harbor.
The Eames Farm condos, with their stark white siding and green roofs, dominate the landscape and can be seen from boats that are miles away on Green Bay, Lash said.
Eames Farm developer Robert Doneff agreed the condos stick out. Perhaps, he said, a less conspicuous color scheme would have been better.
Doneff said about 300 trees planted throughout Eames Farm eventually will grow large enough to make the condos less visible. He noted the development preserved a five-acre wildflower patch and a 10-acre cherry orchard.
“When something new goes in,” Doneff said, “it’s obviously going to look out of place because it’s new.”
Van Dyke called the development’s architectural style “loud.” He said the village should adopt design review standards, which would take into account a development’s proposed scale, color scheme, design and relationship to adjacent properties.
Such standards would “protect the look of the village,” Van Dyke said.
He contrasted Egg Harbor, where he lives, to Ephraim, where he operates the Edgewater Resort.
“Ephraim is like a New England town built between the water and the hillside,” Van Dyke said. “Egg Harbor–it’s a shopping district now as opposed to a quaint village.”
The criticisms of Village Shops irritate Swanson.
He said he added roof dormers, a peaked facade, decorative columns and other features to make the building more attractive.
“The aesthetics of the building are great,” said Swanson. Prior to the Village Shops project, the building was dilapidated and empty, he said.
On a larger issue, Swanson said the push to slow down development in Door County is misguided. He and fellow developer Sarkis both said Door County remains largely undeveloped.
“There’s been a flourish of development,” Sarkis said. “But it’s been stuff that the public demanded, and that met the (county’s) comprehensive plan. If it wasn’t for the resort condos, there wouldn’t be a cry of ‘overdevelopment’ at all.”
Lash agreed the rural character of Door County still largely exists.
“Right now, we haven’t lost it all,” she said. “But if we don’t stop what we’re doing, like a cancer, it will eat it all up.”
