GT County wants more input on Camp Greilick

BY JORDAN TRAVIS

jtravis@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — Camp Greilick’s future depends on what neighbors and other Grand Traverse County residents want to see there.

Darryl Nelson, a county commissioner and former scoutmaster who attended the camp as a kid, said he believes neighbors who had feared plans for it would shatter their tranquility will be happy with what the county does there.

He drew a parallel with concerns that creating the Leelanau Trail — a former railroad grade that’s now a paved pathway between Traverse City and Suttons Bay — would cause problems for neighboring property owners.

Those fears didn’t come to pass, and now people advertise their proximity to the trail.

“I envision that what will happen at Camp Greilick will be in such a way that people that live on the lakes and live in that area will be happy and proud to live next to that park, because they’re going to have a community gem right next door,” he said.

County officials are still working out what the public wants at the nearly 200-acre property in East Bay Township and fronting three lakes.

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Grand Traverse County Parks and Recreation will meet Monday in Besser Lodge at the camp to hear more public input, department Director John Chase said. The idea is to present what people said at the May 21 input session and build on that.

“The intention is to be able to come to this meeting and be able to say, ‘We heard you, and here’s where we are with the development of a plan and how we think we’re going to use the park,’” he said.

Camp Greilick has a long history of outdoor education and recreation, and plans so far call for sticking to future uses along those lines, Chase said. That’s particularly true for the educational piece, which he called a missing component in the area.

Nelson echoed this, saying the park could be a place where kids go to learn to fish, swim, kayak and enjoy the outdoors.

Other ideas are to rent kayaks and paddleboards at the camp, and make its buildings available for meetings, family parties and other small gatherings, Chase said. Rustic camping is another possibility, but he didn’t think a modern campground with RV hookups would fit.

Nor did Chase envision the camp being the site of any large gatherings. Nelson separately agreed, saying neighbors don’t have to worry about “Chicken Dance” blaring over Rennie Lake from some wedding event.

That was a major concern among neighbors when the camp’s current owner, Rotary Camps and Services of Traverse City, proposed turning what had been the Greliick Outdoor Recreation and Education Center into a place that could host events.

Public outcry over the proposal, plus pushback from township planners, prompted the owner to drop its zoning request in September 2022, close GO-REC and look for a buyer.

Traverse City will buy 300 acres of wooded land crisscrossed with hiking trails as part of a 528-acre addition to Brown Bridge Quiet Area.

It’ll be some time before the former camp will reopen to public use, Chase said. For one thing, the county hasn’t closed on the property yet. He expects that should be finalized later in August. For another, it’ll take some cleanup work on the property, including removing some structures and rehabbing others. He expected it could be ready in 2025.

Camp Greilick will become the “capstone” of more than 2,000 acres of public lands, providing another link to miles of trails that wind through Brown Bridge Quiet Area, Nelson said.

“I think of all the things we’ve done in the past few years, this is going to be one of the biggest when you look back within 20 years,” he said.

One of the cabins at the Greilick Outdoor Recreation and Education Center.

Record-Eagle/ Jan-Michael Stump