Welcome. In March of 2025, the Herald Palladium reported on a proposal to create a trail along Hickory Creek in Berrien County, Michigan. In November of 2025, Lincoln Township, Stevensville, and St. Joseph Township committed to pay Abonmarche $26,700.00 to investigate the feasibility of a trail.
We are property owners along Hickory Creek and we oppose any development.
Private Property
The proposed trail along Hickory Creek would not be exclusively on publicly owned lands or parcels of land that have been freely donated. This is not a trail along previously developed land like the abandoned railroad track trails. On the contrary, much of this proposed trail is on private property.
It is hard to understand why local officials would even consider this trail without getting feedback from the private property owners first. It does not cost nearly $27,000 of tax payer money to know that most people would not want their backyards open to the public. A few members of the community feeling “interested” in someone else’s property doesn’t mean it must be shared. Perhaps it would help the proponents of this trail to imagine if the public was given permission to use your property. This is not acceptable.
Stevensville to Saint Joseph Thoroughfare
It has been suggested that part of the benefit of a trail along Hickory Creek would be to connect Stevensville and Saint Joseph. However, we already have that connection through our public roads. Rather than using limited public resources on a complicated recreation trail, improving bike lanes and sidewalks would benefit more of the community. A protected bike lane along Cleveland Avenue would connect people and housing to resources like Martin’s Super Market grocery stores both located on Cleveland Avenue in Stevensville and Saint Joseph. Four schools, including Saint Joseph High School and Lakeshore High School, are located along Cleveland Avenue as well as health care facilities, churches, an ice arena, and multiple small businesses.
Parks
If Lincoln Township and St. Joseph Township are amenable to putting parks and trails on private property, they are ignoring two great options. The last two large parcels of vacant land along Lake Michigan (the former Snowflake Motel in Stevensville, Michigan) and the Saint Joseph River (the former Berrien Hills Golf Club in St Joseph, Michigan) are both in the planning phase of re-development. Both of these sites are a once in a generation opportunity to build lake front and river front parks with bike and walking trails which could be an incredible draw for tourism to the area. It would be wildly inappropriate to ask homeowners along Hickory Creek to give their back yards to create public space when local governments are not willing to forego some new property tax revenue to do the same.
Safety & Flooding
Hickory Creek is an important floodplain. Flooding along Hickory Creek means low homes and structures elsewhere may be spared from flooding damage. Flooding can happen multiple times a year and it can happen quickly. Designing a trail that could be fully submerged multiple times a year will be expensive and require frequent maintenance which is to say this trail is not a feasible idea.
Injuries can happen on roads and sidewalks, but this proposed trail is a liability. As a floodplain, there is an elevated risk of injury from falling trees and branches. Proposing a trail for biking immediately adjacent to a steep drop off to a waterway is an accident waiting to happen. The level of infrastructure that will be required to make that safe for the public would be incredibly destructive and expensive. A lawsuit from an injury or fatality on the proposed trail could be financially catastrophic to the private property owners.
Green Space
Finally, we oppose the trail because building it whittles away at yet another corridor of green space left in our community. Development of these corridors fragments habitats and disrupts wildlife movement. It is an encroachment of continued sprawl into the few wild spaces left in Berrien County. Although small, this proposed trail would be our local contribution to dwindling biodiversity and weakening climate resilience.
Yes, it is just a trail. But every small choice on the local level contributes to bigger issues. This trail would displace trees, woodpeckers, and foxes to give us more picnic tables, garbage bins and parking lots. Every green space does not need to be utilized by people to be valuable. Some members of the community, including some state and local officials, do not agree with that sentiment. However, on this issue, as the owners of the property we should get to decide.
Please check back for any news on this issue and for updates on planned community organizing for property owners to defend themselves from this government overreach.