Building near the Lake Michigan shoreline and on the dunes

A lot of Muskegon County’s prettiest property sits right on Lake Michigan or up in the dunes — and the state has two rules that can shape what you’re allowed to build there. They only apply to land close to the big lake, not to most of the county.

The first covers critical dune areas. Michigan protects its Lake Michigan sand dunes, so if your lot is in a mapped critical dune area, you usually need a permit from the state’s environmental agency (EGLE) before you build a home, add on, or do anything that significantly disturbs the dune.

The second covers high-risk erosion areas — stretches of shoreline where the land is slowly wearing back toward the water. If your lot is in one of these areas, you’ll need a permit to put up a permanent building, and you have to set it back a safe distance from the edge of the bluff, far enough to allow for decades of erosion. Lake Michigan’s level rises and falls over the years, and high-water stretches like 2019 and 2020 wore away at bluffs all along the West Michigan coast, which is what these setbacks guard against.

If you’re eyeing shoreline or dune property, check whether the exact lot falls in one of these zones before you buy or draw up plans — the state has a free online map you can search by address. You can start at Michigan.gov/CriticalDunes for the dune maps, and EGLE’s shoreland pages cover the high-risk erosion areas.