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Opposition to the proposed
construction of a banquet center at Indiana Dunes State Park continues to
grow among the state’s environmental organizations who have been joined by a
prominent consumer group.
Today the Hoosier
Environmental Council and the Hoosier Sierra Club released a joint statement
with the Citizens Action Coalition, a utility watchdog, formally taking a
position against the DNR’s plan to lease land next to the Pavilion at the
Dunes State Park beach to private developers.
All three voiced support
instead for the simple renovation of the Pavilion, what they call a
“compromise” which would have “limited adverse impacts to the park, its
visitors, and the natural resources it protects.”
The DNR’s contract with
Pavilion Partners LLC to rehab the Pavilion, then build a comfort center to
the west and a banquet center to the east, would “harm the park’s beach
environment by contributing more light pollution at night, creating an
attractive--even deadly--nuisance for birds given the banquet hall’s huge
glass windows, and setting the stage for more beach-front development in the
form of a hotel and marina (described in the developer’s original proposal
as possible future projects at the site).”
The three organizations
specifically accuse the DNR of “touting the project as a Pavilion re-use”
but omitting to inform the public of the plan to build a banquet center.
“This was
intentionally misleading on their part to keep the public out of the process
after their experience in 2006,” said Bowden Quinn, chapter director of the
Sierra Club’s Hoosier Chapter, referring to the organized opposition nine
years ago to the DNR’s proposal to build a hotel in the same general area.
The DNR withdrew that proposal after failing to attract potential vendors to
the project.
“Here
is yet another conversion of public land to benefit private development
interests,” said Tim Maloney, senior policy director for the Hoosier
Environmental Council. “Dunes State Park and its beach are public lands and
held in trust for the people of Indiana. With this project the developers
will retain the majority of profits from the project, while paying a very
cheap lease payment--no more than a family would pay for a four-bedroom
home--for as long as 65 years.”
Citizens Action
Coalition Executive-Director Kerwin Olson, for his part, criticized a lack
of transparency in the plan. “The DNR and the developers have been
negotiating this deal since 2012,” he said. “The public should have been
advised then about the new building,” plans for which were announced only in
February and only after the
Chesterton Tribune
made inquiries about ongoing construction work at the Pavilion.
“The fact that the
DNR would even consider building a new banquet hall with huge windows on the
beach there shows how poorly thought out this was,” said Maloney. “The DNR
just built a beautiful bird observation platform at the park, and now they
are adding a new structure that may become a major bird hazard.”
“The Lake Michigan
shoreline is critically important to millions of migratory birds, which use
the shoreline as an important resting area,” the statement noted.
“The paltry amount
of money the DNR will get from putting a private banquet hall on the most
desirable real estate on Lake Michigan in Indiana amounts to a give-away of
public land,” added Quinn. “We strongly object to DNR's secrecy, lack of
transparency, and failure to get adequate public participation, which are
vital to any proposal to increase human impacts on our state's precious
natural areas.”
The organizations are
encouraging letters, e-mails, and phone calls to Governor Pence to cancel
this project. Contact information can be found at http://in.gov/gov/2333.htm
Posted 5/8/2015
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