Michigan Water Law Is Shifting, and I'm Watching It Happen
My practice in northern Michigan has always kept me close to the water. Riparian rights, dock disputes, lake access conflicts, shoreline regulations — these issues have been a consistent part of my work at Carey Jaskowski PLC for years. But something has changed noticeably over the past two or three years, and I think it reflects a broader shift that anyone who owns waterfront property in Michigan, or advises those who do, should pay close attention to right now.
The change I'm seeing is this: disputes that used to be primarily between private landowners are increasingly pulling in a third party. State and local government. Regulatory agencies, township zoning boards, and environmental bodies are becoming far more active participants in waterfront property conflicts. What was once a straightforward riparian rights question between two neighbors now frequently involves a regulatory layer that neither party anticipated when they bought their property. As an observation, the legal landscape here is genuinely more complicated than it was even five years ago.
I've seen this play out in concrete ways. A property owner installs or repairs a dock and assumes, reasonably, that they are exercising a traditional riparian right. They have owned waterfront property for years. The dock has been there for decades. But they're now receiving notices from township authorities or state environmental bodies asserting permit requirements, setback violations, or restrictions tied to shoreline classifications that didn't exist — or weren't enforced — a generation ago. The legal right to use the water hasn't disappeared, but the procedural requirements surrounding that right have multiplied.
Part of what is driving this is pressure on inland lakes and rivers in northern Michigan from increased recreational use. More people, more boats, more development, and more competing interests have pushed municipalities and state agencies to assert regulatory authority they technically had but rarely exercised. I spoke on practical aspects of riparian law at the Torch Lake Protection Alliance's annual meeting back in 2016, and even then the tension between private riparian rights and growing public interest in water access was becoming visible. What I described as an emerging tension then is now active litigation and active regulation.
The backlot access problem has intensified too. This is an area where I've always seen misunderstanding, but the volume and complexity of disputes has grown. A property owner with an easement to the water believes they can use the shoreline the same way a riparian owner would. A riparian owner believes the easement holder has no right to install a dock, moor a boat, or bring guests down to the water. Both parties may be partially right. The scope of a water access easement depends on specific language, historical use, and the burden imposed on the waterfront parcel. And now there's often a zoning question layered on top: even if the private easement allows certain uses, does the township permit them? That intersection of private property law and municipal regulation is where I'm spending more of my time than ever before.
Township authority over Great Lakes bottomlands is another area I've tracked closely. I wrote about it in the State Bar of Michigan Real Property Law Section newsletter back in 2016. The core question of where local regulatory authority ends and private riparian rights begin hasn't been fully resolved, and the answer keeps shifting as courts and agencies push into new factual situations. My expectation is that the Michigan appellate courts will be asked to clarify several unsettled points in the next few years. Attorneys, owners, and developers who aren't watching those developments closely will be caught off guard.
So where do I think this is heading? I expect regulatory involvement in waterfront property disputes to increase, not stabilize. Environmental concerns, public access advocacy, and local government budget pressures all point in that direction. The clients who will be best protected are those who treat regulatory compliance as part of their property rights strategy from the beginning, not as an afterthought when a notice shows up. If you own waterfront property or are acquiring it, the time to understand the full legal picture, private rights and regulatory requirements both, is before a conflict starts. You can learn more about how I approach these issues on the about page, or reach out directly if a specific waterfront question has already landed in your lap.