With 300 Jeepsters watching, Oakland County votes to create park for off-road vehicles

 A crowd of more than 300 off-road vehicle buffs -- some from as far as Kalamazoo, Saginaw and northern Ohio -- jammed a meeting of Oakland County parks officials Wednesday in Waterford Township to implore support for a new park where they could drive their Jeeps and other off-road machines.

“There’s this image of off-roaders like, ‘Hold my beer and watch this,’ but we have a large group and we spend a lot of money” -- with an emphasis on safety and family fun, not alcohol consumption, said Jim Kitson, 60, of Davison, an engineering manager who helped draw the big crowd via Facebook and e-mail. Kitson’s burgundy Jeep with oversize tires sat outside amid scores of other Jeeps, off-road-ready pickups and similar vehicles.

After an hour of positive comments and none opposed, the Oakland County Parks and Recreation Commission voted 10-0 in favor of a preliminary “concept” to develop a partnership with state park officials.

The crowd of off-roaders, some in sweatshirts that said "Swamp Stompers" or "Wanted: Oakland County ORV Park,"  stood up to clap and cheer, then trooped out to rumble off in heavy-duty vehicles, some with giant tires.

Plans call for the park, on former gravel pits in Groveland Township, to open with its first phase of trails and user facilities in the fall of 2018, said Dan Stencil, executive officer of Oakland County Parks and Recreation Commission, and director of the county's sprawling 7,000-acre network of 13 parks and golf courses with its $25-million annual budget.

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"I think this is going to be a real asset, not just to our county but to the whole region," Stencil said.

The location means that some off-roaders can come just for an afternoon from metro Detroit, instead of driving for hours to distant parks in northern Michigan or out of state, while others will stay for several days at the site in Groveland Township and camp at Oakland County’s Groveland Oaks County Park “right across the street” from the ORV park, Kitson said.

“We have people from all over the state who are here and who’ll come to this park,” Kitson said. He took shows of hands identifying audience members from as far as Kalamazoo, Saginaw, Michigan’s far north as well as northern Ohio. Kitson, active with the Great Lakes Four Wheel Club, admitted he was largely responsible for the turnout because for the last year he’d been communicating relentlessly online with dozens of clubs and hundreds of their members.

A park for off-road vehicles had been envisioned for decades somewhere in southern Michigan, but in recent years the focus fell on Oakland County's parcel of old gravel pits just off I-75 and adjacent to Mt. Holly Ski & Snowboard Resort in northern Oakland County, state and county officials said. Planning accelerated recently, although making it happen got tedious because the park entailed an unusual partnership with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, which has been purchasing the played-out gravel pits.

The location, in sparsely populated Groveland, has been one that ORV fans have yearned to use, said Jason Fleming, chief of resource protection and promotion for MDNR’s Parks and Recreation Division. It’s ideal for attracting the ORV crowd not only from southeast Michigan but throughout the state and Midwest, Fleming said.

People who come to the future park with have myriad activities to pursue besides their off-roading sport, Fleming said.

"You've got the ski hill right there," he said, referring to Mt. Holly Ski Resort; "and they'll have this whole other park next door" for camping and other outdoor recreation, he said. So far, the state has purchased about 235 acres of the gravel pits using monies from the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund -- which come from oil, gas and other mineral royalties on state land.

The county has held two days of "gully runs" in which ORV users were given a limited course at the site to test their reactions and gauge public interest, "and those went very, very well," said Gary McGillivray, an elected Oakland County commissioner from Madison Heights, who is an appointed member of the county parks commission.

Most of those in the audience were men, some with long hair and beards, and many wearing hunting or other outdoor attire. But several women spoke up to praise "off-roading" as the ideal family activity.

"My husband and I have a 4-year-old and this is getting her away from the TV and outside to see what our state has to offer," said Jeane Smith, 41, of Waterford.

And Jennifer Tomko, 41, of South Lyon said she owns three Jeeps and that the off-roaders she'd met had become a family to her.

"We are passionate," said Tomko, then turned to the audience to ask, "How many of you are on a fake lunch right now to be here?" As Tomko's hand shot up, laughter rose in the room along with dozens of other hands.

Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com