The Dockside waterfront is changing.

What’s going on

Six things the public records show. Every fact on this page comes from a public record, and the document numbers are listed in small type under each section.

What changes for the rest of us

Dockside has long been a public-facing place: a restaurant and boat rentals beside a sand beach at the mouth of the river. Here is what the developer’s own filing keeps, adds and changes.

What’s being proposed

The published notice asks for a special land use permit under Zoning Ordinance §§ 1641 (Planned Unit Development) and 1602 (review standards) to build “Dockside Village” on the platted lots at the river mouth. The full 44-page submission (September 18, 2026) is a public record — posted on the township homepage (foresthometwp.com) — and it describes a bigger project than the notice suggests.

What the developer’s own paperwork says

• A three-story, 29,177-square-foot mixed-use building on 0.88 acre across all four plat lots (the notice’s parcel-number list names three): an expanded restaurant — 305 seats on the parking plan — a coffee/ice-cream bakery, retail space, new watersports facilities, and five condominium units above, with a rooftop deck and a 71-foot “lighthouse tower.”
• Setbacks the applicant asks to waive: zero on the Old Torch Lake Drive side, the edge of the existing deck on the Clam River side, and 20 feet at the waterfront — exactly the § 1641.C flexibility a PUD buys.
• Parking: 110 spaces, all in existing lots restriped — 75 of them in the public road right-of-way — against 184 the plan’s own calculation requires; 23 dock “boat parking spaces” and off-site parking agreements (plus valet) make up the rest. 15 boat docks and 8 seasonal docks.
• The condos are a managed-rental product: sold as second homes, rentable only through the developer’s management company (Airbnb/VRBO barred by the condo documents), one-week minimum, occupancy capped at two per bedroom.
• Timeline: existing buildings demolished Fall 2027; restaurant open May 2028; condos for the 2028 season; completion end of 2028.
• Water: the site runs on its own well (type IIB, “viability… being studied”); the plan dimensions a 75-foot well clearance next to the new sewage infrastructure. There is no public water here.

This spot is zoned for waterfront business, not housing

The site sits in the Waterfront Commercial (WFC) district. Under the township ordinance, a restaurant and marina / boat storage are allowed there by right — they are the water-dependent commercial uses the district exists to protect. Dwelling units are not a listed use in this district — the submission itself describes the apartments now above the restaurant as “non-conforming apartments that currently exist on the second level of the Dockside Restaurant,” and asks to “allow for residential on the property.” That is why the application takes the PUD path: § 1641 lets the Planning Commission approve a project that the underlying zoning does not otherwise allow, in exchange for demonstrated public benefits.

The 2021 Master Plan speaks to this exact conversion:

“[The Waterfront Commercial designation] is intended to recognize existing non-residential land uses that complement existing lakeside neighborhoods… Desired uses include retail, personal service establishments, restaurants, and similar uses, but the predominant uses are related to marine services.” Development “should remain small scale, serve surrounding neighborhoods… and not conflict with residential uses,” and “should only occur where infrastructure and public services are available.”

The same plan records that “boat repair, boat rental, boat slips, gasoline sales, bait and tackle supplies, restaurants and boat storage have been commercial activities in this location for the past 100 years.”

The parcels

The three waterfront parcels together carry 501 feet of water frontage — 150 feet on Torch Lake and 283 on the Clam River plus the beach lot’s side frontage — on lots the 1935 plat drew at roughly eighth-acre size. The parking lot that serves the site is a separate parcel across Old Torch Lake Drive (Lot 18). The site plan lists it with the other three, but the hearing notice’s parcel numbers and the ownership statement leave it out.

Why the fine print matters

Two ordinance provisions do most of the work:

• § 1602.A(d) — the Commission must find the use will be “served adequately by essential public facilities and services, such as… water and sewage facilities.”
• § 1602.A(g) — a further required finding: that the environment is preserved. On a site with 501 feet of direct water frontage, this finding is not a formality — it has to be supported by the record.
• § 1641.C — inside an approved PUD, the district’s dimensional, parking, and setback regulations do not apply “unless expressly retained in the permit.” That includes § 323, the shoreline protection strip, which otherwise requires native vegetation over 80% of the first 30 feet and 50% of the next 20 feet of the 50-foot shore strip.

And § 1641.D requires a PUD application to show all land in the project — “including any non-contiguous parcels” — with ownership, a staging plan, and water/sewer impact estimates. The notice lists only three parcel numbers; the records below show why the bigger footprint matters.

What the developer says, and what the records show

The developer’s paperwork asks the Planning Commission to rely on statements about the sewage system and the project. We checked them against the public record on October 31, 2026, and they don’t hold up. You can quote any of these at the hearing.

One project in two parts

The application before the township is “Dockside Village” on the lakefront lots. The public records show it is the front half of a single plan whose back half — “BaseCamp at Torch Lake,” a multi-building residential condominium on five acres behind the plat — shares the same developer, the same sewer system, and the same recorded paperwork.

Why they call it “Steiner Pit”

The five-acre backland parcel that carries the wastewater plant has a name with a history: aerial photography shows it — or the ground beside it — was a working borrow pit, freshly scraped in the oldest public imagery (2014-release, likely captured 2012–13) and still visibly bare, slowly revegetating, in the latest (2026). That is the same sandy, fast-draining ground into which the treatment plant would discharge 15,000 gallons a day — the application’s own infiltration test measured 36 inches per hour, the kind of rate you find in sand and gravel. Nothing has been built on it through the latest public capture.

2014-release imagery2014 2026-release imagery2026

Show 2014Show 2026Both side by side

The river mouth, then and now

The township’s own Master Plan records marine commerce at this bend of the river “for the past 100 years.” Postcards from the village’s resort era show what that century looked like — the store at the bridge, the boathouses, the docks — and one aerial shows the public swimming beach that once sat directly across the mouth. The same ground the 71-foot tower would stand on.

The store in these cards still stands as today’s Dockside Restaurant — its upstairs housing the origin of the apartments at issue in the filing; the docks grew into the rental fleet the state finally permitted in 2026; the beach has no successor. What a century built, one filing would replace — see how the marina grew and what changes.

Where the sewage goes

This site sits directly on the water: 501 feet of frontage where the Clam River meets Torch Lake — and no public water or sewer serves it. Both phases of the plan would send their wastewater to one private system on the backland parcel, and as of October 31, 2026, that system’s state permits are still pending — none has been issued. The environmental review of what this project puts into the ground is still unfinished.

The applicant’s own numbers don’t add up

The engineering firm’s sewage calculations, filed with the state, budget the 15,000-gallon-per-day plant like this:

The design is 98.5% allocated before a single Dockside Village unit, the bakery, or the retail is counted. And the PUD site plan proposes a 305-seat restaurant — not the 200 seats the sewage design assumes — which by the applicant’s own per-seat math adds roughly 4,000 gallons/day more. The submission’s own narrative concedes the point in passing: “we are also limited by the capacity of the Advanced Treatment System.”

This isn’t a regular septic field

Mechanically, what is proposed is a large engineered septic field: a 15,000-gallon-per-day package treatment plant on the BaseCamp parcel, with treated effluent percolating into the earth through two 40-by-32-foot rapid-infiltration basins — every day, year-round, serving the five lakefront condominiums, any continuing commercial use, and the full BaseCamp build-out behind them. That is why the state regulates it as a groundwater discharge rather than an ordinary septic system: what leaves this system enters the ground water of the river mouth — the same connected watershed as Torch Lake, the Clam River, and the water the public has long used for swimming off the road-end.

The permit that has not issued is the environmental review. EGLE's groundwater-discharge permit is where the state decides whether this ground can absorb this effluent, at this volume, without degrading water quality — and where effluent limits, monitoring requirements, and protective conditions would be set. As of October 31, 2026, that determination does not exist. If the township approves the PUD first, it will have approved the density that depends on this discharge before the state has decided whether the discharge itself is acceptable.

• No public infrastructure backs this site. The township’s own 2021 Master Plan says Waterfront Commercial development “should only occur where infrastructure and public services are available.” There is no public water or sewer here; the proposal builds its own sewage plant — and the state review of that plant is unfinished.
• The ordinance requires an environmental finding. Alongside sewage adequacy (§ 1602.A(d)), § 1602.A(g) requires a finding that the environment is preserved. A written finding on a direct-waterfront site deserves support in the record: the system’s design capacity against total demand, the effluent limits applied, and the monitoring that will be required — none of which is in the public record today.
• What the public can still weigh in on. When EGLE posts the public notice for application HQN-8FKV-VNJY4, that comment window is the public’s formal opportunity on capacity and lake-quality questions. It has not opened yet — the hearing on November 4 is the window that is open now.

What’s already signed and recorded, and what isn’t public

The system’s governing document is already recorded (June 15, 2026): a state-required restrictive covenant for a community sewerage system. Its terms, in plain language:

• The township refused to be the backstop. On June 4, 2026 the board voted — motion carried — to deny the sewer association’s request that the township accept responsibility for operating and maintaining the system. Every owner in either phase depends entirely on the private association, the unrecorded bylaws, and a county-lien remedy.
• Compulsory membership. Any condominium on either property must be a member of the Steiner Pit Sewer Association — the condo association itself joins and collects from unit owners.
• Joint and several costs. Operation, maintenance, repair, and replacement costs fall on all members together, apportioned by water use under the association’s bylaws.
• A perpetual escrow — seeded at two years of operating cost, rising to five — engineer-certified and reviewed by the state.
• County lien enforcement. Unpaid charges become an Antrim County lien, with attorney fees.
• The state holds the pen. Amendments to the covenant require EGLE’s express written consent.

What the covenant references but does not put on the public record: the association’s bylaws, the operations & maintenance agreement (June 10, 2026), and the escrow certification. None are recorded anywhere a buyer, neighbor, or township official can read them.

Getting to the water

The public’s presence at the Clam River mouth is narrow, old, and entirely a matter of record: one county road-right-of-way with 101 feet of river frontage, about 150 meters east of the Dockside parcels. The 1935 plat dedicated nothing public next to the site — no park, no beach, no access strip.

• PUBLIC RECORD The public wedge: an Antrim County Road Commission parcel (05-07-545-006-00), 0.08 acre with 101 feet of Clam River frontage — the road-end where the public reaches the water at the mouth.
• What grew next to it: the rental docks and boats documented above now occupy the water off this shoreline. Residents who swam off the road-end have watched rental craft and dock structures take that water — an observation that belongs in the hearing record, backed by the aerial series on this page.
• What the filing promises: “The existing sand beach will remain as well as the public access at the end of Old Torch Lake drive will be maintained,” with a new pedestrian plaza at the road’s end; the docks, boardwalk and wood deck stay; site lighting uses cut-off fixtures, and the tower carries a muted amber light that can be dimmed. Inside a PUD, promises in the narrative bind only if they are written into the permit (§ 1641.C) — none is a condition of approval yet.
• The vegetation rule that can be waived: § 323 of the ordinance requires a 50-foot shoreline protection strip with native vegetation over most of its width — the township’s own defense for water quality, filtering runoff and holding the bank before it reaches the lake. Inside a PUD, it applies only if the permit says so (§ 1641.C).
• Water quality oversight for the private treatment plant sits with EGLE, whose public notice on the groundwater application (HQN-8FKV-VNJY4) — when it posts — is the public’s next formal comment window after November 4.

If they approve it, the conditions matter

Under § 1641.C, the township’s normal rules don’t apply inside a PUD unless the permit says so. If the Commission approves Dockside Village without written conditions, the five condos come without the usual protections. Here are conditions the Commission can write in, under its own § 1641.G authority:

1. The whole plan in one record. Require the PUD application and site plan to disclose all affiliated land, easements, and phases — the BaseCamp parcel and the off-site wastewater land — as § 1641.D contemplates.
2. Wastewater before occupancy. Condition any building permit or certificate of occupancy on the EGLE groundwater permit (HQN-8FKV-VNJY4) actually issuing, with capacity documentation and the association’s governing papers placed in the record — and require annual operation and monitoring reports to the township.
3. The marina, in or out. Determine on the record whether the rental marina is inside this PUD or outside it — and if outside, condition against expansion beyond the footprint permit WRP048069 authorizes.
4. Retain the shoreline strip. Expressly retain § 323 (native-vegetation shore strip), building and shoreline setbacks, and a fixed parking count tied to the detached Lot 18 under recorded access — the parking study the Commission itself noted in March 2026 belongs in the record.
5. An expiration date if state permits are not obtained within a defined period.
6. Public lakefront value. If the Commission is minded to approve: make the filing’s own promises — the sand beach that “will remain,” the road-end public access that “will be maintained,” the pedestrian plaza, and the cut-off, dimmable lighting — written conditions of approval; and consider retained transient dock access, a public fishing or viewing easement, or continuation of a water-access service — this is one of the few boat-accessible destinations on the lake, in a district created to keep exactly that.

Read the documents

Twelve public records behind this story. Tap any one to open it (PDF).

• PDFHearing notice

  The request, parcels, hearing date, comment deadline — and the “Page 58” plat error

  Open PDF · 32 KB

  9/21/2026 · official, township homepage · Original source ↗

• PDFDockside Village PUD submission

  The whole proposal: 71-ft tower, 305 seats, setback waivers, STR model, staging — and the “separately permitted and approved” utilities claim

  Open PDF · 20.5 MB

  9/18/2026 · 44 pp · Original source ↗

• PDFSewage flow calculations

  The capacity table: 15,000 gpd design, 98.5% allocated, zero for the condos/bakery/retail

  Open PDF · 81 KB

  4/11/2026 · Spicer Group, EGLE vault

• PDFFlow narrative

  Existing drainfield to be demolished; forcemain intercepted to the Basecamp plant; 3×5,000-gal daily doses to the basins

  Open PDF · 21 KB

  5/2/2026 · Spicer Group

• PDFRIB basis of design

  36 in/hr field-tested infiltration rate — the sandy-gravel ground the effluent enters

  Open PDF · 110 KB

  4/20/2026

• PDFWWTF basis of design

  Effluent limits (BOD/TSS/phosphorus/nitrogen) for the discharge into the ground

  Open PDF · 14 KB

  4/27/2026

• PDFEngineering drawings, revised “per EGLE comments”

  The site plan: treatment train by Clam Lake Rd, two basins SE corner, well-isolation areas, BaseCamp site-condo layout

  Open PDF · 7.1 MB

  8/28/2026

• PDFForest Home Township refusal letter

  The township formally declined responsibility for operating the sewer system

  Open PDF · 616 KB

  6/5/2026 · + 6/4 board minutes

• PDFNongovernmental ownership checklist

  McMullen as the sewer association’s contact; the Part 41 private-ownership path

  Open PDF · 1.1 MB

  6/2026 · signed

• PDFMarina permit WRP048069

  26-slip rental marina authorized to the operator; the notice framed as revising the layout of what already operated

  Open PDF · 3.1 MB

  2/23/2026 · Also: the public notice (PDF, 16 KB)

• TXTLive permit-status capture

  EGLE’s own site profile the evening of Oct 31: groundwater application In Process, construction application On Hold, no permits

  Open the capture · 2 KB

  10/31/2026 · Original source ↗

• WEBBaseCamp marketing site

  “18 custom homes starting in the mid-$800,000s” — phase two in sales while the sewer permit is pending

  Open the website ↗

  live ~8/2026

Local copies are exact downloads; “source” links point to the issuing body (township, EGLE) so nothing here depends on this page staying up. Recorded deed instruments (202600004688, 202600004687, etc.) are viewable at the Antrim County Register of Deeds / AVA portal by document number — see Sources below.

Common questions

Short answers, each drawn from the records cited in this story. Facts are current as of Oct. 31, 2026.

Where this comes from

Everything in this story comes from public records. We list the document, permit and application numbers so anyone can look them up. Anything from a secondary source is labeled.