Protecting the lake we love — and keeping the families who call this wonderful community home informed.
The North Lake Alliance is an independent, mostly volunteer organization dedicated to educating the North Lake Leelanau community about zoning, land use, property rights, and to the consideration of various community improvement projects.
At the September 3rd Leland Township Planning Commission meeting, LLLA withdrew any perceived proposal resulting from its recent presentation. While this withdrawal is important, continued awareness and participation remain essential. Your membership with the North Lake Alliance (NLA) will help keep you informed as zoning updates unfold.
Informed neighbors, a healthy lake, a fair process.
To provide the North Lake Leelanau community with clear, factual, and timely information about potential community enhancement projects, zoning, land use, property rights, and stewardship of the lake and its shoreline — so that public decisions affecting the lake and our special community are informed, transparent, and fair to everyone.
Educate & Inform
Explain zoning, land-use, property-rights, and community-project topics in plain language, and make primary-source documents easy for anyone to find and read.
Monitor & Report
Track local planning and zoning activity and publish factual meeting summaries, so residents can follow what's happening without attending every meeting.
Encourage Participation & Stewardship
Help residents understand how the public process works and how to take part in it, and support community efforts and public/private partnerships or other projects that benefit our community and everyone who enjoys it.
Why “North” Lake Alliance?
Leland Township — where the LLLA model language was distributed — primarily borders the north basin of Lake Leelanau, so that is where clear community information is needed first. Leland Township controls zoning encompassing the entire North Lake, the Leland River and a large portion of the Narrows.
Lake Leelanau is bordered by several townships, each with its own zoning authority. We hope neighbors in those townships will stay informed alongside us, and we welcome the conversation.
View Leland Township zoning map (PDF)A Letter to Our Neighbors
Dear Friends and Neighbors on North Lake Leelanau,
Recently, the Lake Leelanau Lake Association made a presentation to the Leland Township Planning Commission regarding a waterfront overlay district and provided a handout with model language. What was presented raised significant concerns and many found it quite alarming.
The North Lake Alliance is an independent property owner organization dedicated to protecting property and riparian rights and our ability to responsibly use and enjoy our special community and the lake we love.
The North Lake Alliance is not intended to eliminate, compete with, or replace any existing organization. Rather, it will provide an independent, educational voice focused specifically on the interests and concerns of North Lake property owners — particularly when decisions involving zoning, land use, riparian rights and use of the lake are being considered.
The North Lake Alliance may also champion public/private partnerships viewed as improving our use and enjoyment of the lake as well as our wonderful community.
The North Lake Alliance is envisioned as a mostly volunteer organization, supported by modest annual dues of $35 per household. When necessary, additional funds will be raised to retain qualified professionals to help us understand and respond to proposals that could significantly affect property owners.
An important part of the Alliance's mission will be to monitor local planning and zoning activity, keep property owners informed, and provide an educational and thoughtful voice when changes are being considered. We want to help ensure that decisions affecting North Lake Leelanau are based on demonstrated need, common sense, and a careful consideration of private property rights.
We strongly support protecting the water quality of Lake Leelanau and preserving this extraordinary resource for future generations. Protecting the lake and protecting the reasonable rights of the people who live on it are not competing goals. Good public policy should accomplish both.
We love our lake. We want to protect it, and we also want to protect the rights of the families who call its shoreline home.
Please join us.
— The current members of the North Lake Alliance
What's Happening
Update — September 3, 2026: At the September 3rd Leland Township Planning Commission meeting, LLLA withdrew any perceived proposal resulting from its recent presentation. While this withdrawal is important, continued awareness and participation remain essential. Your membership with the North Lake Alliance (NLA) will help keep you informed as zoning updates unfold.
Why Property Owners Should Pay Attention
Recently, the Lake Leelanau Lake Association (LLLA) introduced a waterfront overlay district and model language to the Leland Township Planning Commission for consideration. This is important because Leland Township controls zoning encompassing the entire North Lake, the Leland River and a large portion of the Narrows. The model language included restrictions that could affect how you use, improve, rebuild, and enjoy your waterfront property indefinitely.
Protecting Lake Leelanau is important to all of us. But good environmental policy should be science-based, locally justified, proportionate to an identified problem, and developed with meaningful participation from the property owners who would be directly affected.
What Has Been Introduced?
The waterfront “model language” introduced to the Leland Township Planning Commission included restrictions beyond current Leland Township zoning, including:
- 75-foot shoreline setback
- 1 dock per 100 feet of frontage
- 1 boat lift/hoist per 100 feet
- 2 motorized watercraft per 100 feet
- 4 non-motorized watercraft per 100 feet
- Mandatory site-plan review for most waterfront development
- Additional restrictions affecting structures, lighting and waterfront uses
These are not minor technical changes. They can affect the future use, flexibility and potentially the value of your waterfront property.
Only elected and appointed township officials can enact zoning. But property owners should understand what is being advocated before those regulations are adopted. The full model-language text is on the Documents page so you can read it exactly as drafted.
What Does the Science Actually Support?
Environmental science supports reducing runoff, minimizing fertilizer use and protecting water quality. But that does not automatically establish a scientific basis for every introduced zoning restriction.
Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) guidance does not identify requirements such as one dock per 100 feet, one boat lift per 100 feet, fixed boat limits, or universal site-plan review as statewide standards.
The water quality report located on LLLA's website describes North and South Lakes as healthy, while identifying issues that warrant continued attention, including warming and phosphorus trends. Recommendations emphasize actions such as reducing fertilizer/runoff and continued monitoring rather than the specific dock, lift and boat restrictions contained in the model language.
Ask the Most Important Question
Before imposing additional restrictions on hundreds of waterfront families:
What documented Lake Leelanau problem is each new regulation intended to solve — and what evidence demonstrates that the restriction will solve it?
Environmental protection and property rights do not have to be opposing goals. We can protect Lake Leelanau while insisting that regulations be reasonable, scientifically supported, locally appropriate and proportionate to the problem being addressed.
This has happened before. A similar waterfront zoning approach was discussed in Leland Township in 2011, and the record from that process — including attorney Peter Miller's November 2011 letter — is useful historical context for today's conversation. It shows how much clearer the discussion becomes when residents are informed early. See the Documents page.
The Alliance tracks Planning Commission activity and shares plain-language summaries so you don't have to attend every meeting to know what's happening.
See exampleZoning changes follow a defined public process — planning commission review, public hearings, township board action. We explain where each proposal stands and how any resident can participate.
When proposals warrant it, dues and additional fundraising may support qualified professionals — legal, planning, environmental — whose analysis helps the community understand what is being considered.
Property Owners Need a Voice at the Table
Once restrictive zoning is adopted, changing it can be difficult. That is why Lake Leelanau property owners need an independent organization focused specifically on:
Volunteer With Us
The Alliance runs on the time and energy of neighbors who care about North Lake Leelanau. There is a role for every level of availability — from an hour a month to steady involvement.
Attend & Report
Sit in on a Planning Commission meeting and share what you heard. We turn your notes into a plain-language summary for the Documents page.
Neighborhood Outreach
Help us keep more of the North Lake community informed — introduce a neighbor, host a small dock-side gathering, or hand out information at community events.
Skills & Expertise
Legal, land-use planning, environmental, communications, or web skills are especially valuable. Even a few hours on a specific question makes a difference.
Join the Property Owners Alliance
Our goal is not to oppose protecting Lake Leelanau.
Our goal is to make sure the people most affected by waterfront regulations have a meaningful voice before those regulations are adopted.
Get informed. Get involved. Join us.
$35 / household / year
Membership is open to anyone who cares about North Lake Leelanau and wants to stay informed about the decisions that affect it. Dues and donations support a broad mission: educating members about their property rights, informing them of potential governmental overreach, and supporting projects that enhance our special community.
Pay your annual dues or make a donation securely online below, or contact us to pay by check or to be added to the list of founding members.
This is not tax deductible at this time.
Contact
Questions, comments, or something we should know about? We'd like to hear from you.
Email: info@northlakealliance.com
Mail: North Lake Alliance, PO Box 829, Leland, MI 49654