HOWELL — After 38 public hearings, four redesigns, two lawsuits, one mayoral election that turned on it, and what one council member on Monday night called "the longest single agenda item in my civic life," the Howell City Council voted 5-2 to approve construction of a 3,100-foot wooden boardwalk along the east bank of the Howell Millpond.

The vote, taken just after 11 p.m. in front of a standing-room-only chamber, ends a planning process that began in November 2024 — when the city first received a $4.2 million matching grant from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources tied to the Iron Belle Trail — and clears the way for groundbreaking on June 23.

"I want to be honest with everyone in this room," said council member Priya Aulakh, who provided one of the deciding votes. "I have changed my mind on this project three separate times. Tonight was the fourth. The version we have in front of us is not the version I would have designed. It's the version I can live with."

What the project actually is, now

The approved design — the fourth since 2024 — is shorter than the original by roughly 800 feet, ends before reaching the privately owned shoreline north of Sibley Street, and replaces the originally proposed concrete deck with treated hardwood. A planned 24-foot observation tower was eliminated in March after the Livingston County Audubon Society raised concerns about its effect on migratory waterfowl.

What remains is a ten-foot-wide elevated boardwalk that will run from a new trailhead at Thompson Lake Road south to a reconstructed fishing pier near the State Street bridge. The project includes three "wide-outs" with benches, an ADA-accessible kayak launch at its midpoint, and roughly 1,400 linear feet of restored shoreline plantings.

"Honestly, the design got better every time we lost an argument," said city engineer Ben Halverson, dryly, after the vote. "I don't necessarily recommend the process."

How we got here

The project was first proposed in the fall of 2024 as part of the city's long-running effort to link downtown Howell with the broader Lakelands Trail system to the east. From the start, it ran into objections from three distinct groups, and one of the reasons the process took so long is that those groups disagreed with each other almost as often as they disagreed with the city.

A small but persistent group of east-bank homeowners objected to any structure within sight of their property. A coalition of fishing-club members worried that increased foot traffic would degrade what is widely considered the best near-town bluegill fishing in the county. And a third group — environmental advocates organized loosely under the name Friends of the Pond — argued that any built shoreline structure was the wrong answer, and pushed instead for the same money to be spent on dredging and aquatic-plant restoration.

"We were the ones holding the line on doing it right, not doing it bigger," said Friends of the Pond co-founder Lena Krieger, who watched the vote from the second row. "I think we got about 60 percent of what we wanted. Which, if you'd asked me eighteen months ago, I would have called a win. Tonight I'm not sure how I feel."

The lawsuits

The first lawsuit, filed in March 2025 by an east-bank property owner, was dismissed last August on standing grounds. The second, filed in October by a coalition of three homeowners, is still pending in Livingston County Circuit Court — though attorney Mark Wisnewski, who represents the plaintiffs, told the Ledger Monday night that "we will be evaluating our options in light of the final approved design, which is materially different from the design we sued over."

City attorney Janelle Bouchard said the city believes the remaining litigation poses no obstacle to the June 23 start date. "We've built our timeline around the assumption it gets resolved one way or the other by mid-July," she said. "We feel comfortable there."

Cost, and who's paying

The total project cost is now estimated at $7.8 million — up from the original $6.4 million estimate, primarily because of the hardwood substitution and the shoreline restoration work added in 2025. Of that, $4.2 million comes from the state DNR grant, $1.6 million from a federal Land and Water Conservation Fund award announced in February, and the remaining $2 million from a combination of city general funds and a $750,000 private contribution from the Howell Area Community Foundation.

No millage was required, a fact council members on both sides of the vote emphasized repeatedly.

What happens Tuesday morning

City staff will begin notifying utility companies and adjacent property owners of the construction timeline today. A community open house — the first of three planned during construction — is scheduled for June 5 at the Bennett Recreation Center. The first segment, from Thompson Lake Road to the kayak launch, is expected to open by Labor Day; the full boardwalk is scheduled for completion in May 2027.

For Mayor Diana Beauchamp, who first publicly supported the boardwalk in her 2024 campaign and watched her margin of victory narrow in 2025 partly because of it, Monday night was about more than the project.

"I told someone outside the chamber a few minutes ago that this is the first time in a year and a half I haven't had this thing on my desk," she said, standing in the lobby just after midnight. "I'm going to sleep. And then tomorrow I'm going to go look at the pond."

— Margaret Vanderbeek has covered Howell city government for the Ledger since 2018. Reach her at margaret@livingstonledger.example.