It is just one of many developments in this northeast Oakland County area that includes Orion Township and the Village of Lake Orion. But its story reflects an ascendant philosophy of property rights in Oakland County, the state and the nation. Township building official Tom Berger, whose office workload tripled in seven years because of development, talks about vacationing outside Lake Orion. He dreams aloud of visiting Redwood National Park in California, even as he issues permits to developers such as Robertson Brothers, who destroy wooded areas in his own hometown. In Oakland County, whose population grew at more than twice the rate of the state as a whole between 1990 and 1995, officials continue pushing economic growth.
Critics say it's at the expense of the environment.
It's this pioneer mentality that there's just this unlimited supply of land to satisfy our desires. Seeing a nightmare Camp Franklin became an issue in October 1991, around the start of the building boom in Lake Orion. It was also the time Connie Abel was ousted as chair of the village zoning board, which grants variances to developers. I never thought it was a political board. But very slowly things started to change.