County grapples with lake access issues

PINE RIVER -- Brainerd attorney John Erickson returned Tuesday to the Cass County Board, in response to a board request at the last meeting, with proposed language for an ordinance to extend for 180 days a moratorium on lake access lots until an impact study can be conducted.

His proposal is to set a moratorium on all plats during the study period.

In the meantime, he told the board his reading of the county's current zoning ordinance language tells him using a shoreline lot to provide access to a lake by people other than those owning a developed lot on the lake would be illegal.

Cass' permitted use list for shoreline lots does not include lake access for offshore landowners, he said. Lake access is neither a residential nor a commercial use of the shoreline property, he said. This is not an ownership issue. It is a land use issue, he said.

Lake access use can only be created through the county's lake access conditional use procedure, Erickson said.

Environmental Services Department employees have expressed their concern that people could use a shoreline lot by selling joint ownerships in it to offshore lot owners. Erickson said he thinks this is not a permitted use as he reads the county ordinance.

Erickson noted in an e-mail to county board members last week Minnesota DNR Shorelands Management Standards Task Force proposes to add to state shoreland management rules that "controlled access lots shall not be allowed where it is intended to provide riparian (shoreline) access for owners of non-riparian (offshore) lots or parcels."

The county board referred Erickson's recommendations to county staff to review before the next public hearing on proposed zoning ordinance changes, scheduled for the July 5 board meeting at the courthouse in Walker.