Peaine Township Updates its 5-Year Recreation Plan
LIAA collaborated with Peaine Township, one of the two municipalities on Beaver Island, to update their 5-year recreation plan. The planning process included a review of the previous plan as well as a comprehensive community engagement process. The 5-year plan is intended to help the community acquire grant funding for its various recreation assets from the State of Michigan.
LIAA Develops Sustainability Framework for City of Petoskey
LIAA recently worked with the City of Petoskey to develop a community Sustainability Framework. The framework will help inform the City’s ongoing Livable Petoskey Master Plan update by analyzing all of the sustainability-related goals, objectives and action programs present in various local and regional planning documents. After reviewing existing plans, the framework was categorized into the following four planning categories: Environmental Stewardship, Built Environment, Community and Local Economy. These categories are further broken down into 20 focus areas. This process involved various public engagement events, which are highlighted at livablepetoskey.org.
"Welcome To" Talks to the Director of the National Charrette Institute
The most recent episode of LIAA’s "Welcome To" podcast features Holly Madill, Director of the National Charrette Institute (NCI), which is housed at Michigan State University. The episode covers the purpose of a charrette, a community facilitation technique that is well-known for its ability to create collaborative planning efforts by engaging a wide range of stakeholders. The NCI regularly hosts training sessions on how to implement a successful charrette. Find other episodes of LIAA's "Welcome To" podcast here.
TACM Streams Michigan Septic Summit
Did you know that Michigan is the only state without a uniform septic code? Neither did we, that is, before we attended the Michigan Septic Summit in November, 2019. With the aid of a volunteer production director, Traverse Area Community Media (TACM) at LIAA streamed the all-day Michigan Septic Summit to Facebook live. This marked our longest live broadcast since the infamous twelve hour Teleganza broadcast of 2010! And—just to reiterate—it was all directed by a volunteer! A big thanks to Dave Poinsett for volunteering to steer the crew.
Michigan Water Trails Updates
At the end of 2019, LIAA completed an update to the trail map overlays on Michigan Water Trails, the most comprehensive site for water trail information in the state. The technology we were using to draw the trail lines on Google Maps was no longer supported, but this update keeps the trails available.
In other Michigan Water Trails news, look for additional river trail information to come online later in 2020. New partners are working on updates now and intend to have more information available for the summer paddling season. Stay tuned!