Road ends on local lakes

By Michael Scott

The legal rights to use public road ends that border an inland lake has long been a topic of uncertainty, and occasionally contention in Oakland County and throughout the state of Michigan.

A “public road end” is the terminus at an inland lake or stream of a road that is lawfully open for use by the public, according to Attorney Clifford Bloom, a partner with the Grand Rapids-based law firm Bloom Slugget, PC.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) estimates there are more than 11,000 inland lakes in the state, which equates to more freshwater shoreline than any other state nationally. The DNR also lists 82 state-sponsored harbors, over 1,300 state and local boat launch sites and more than 6,000 boat slips throughout the state and local harbors. While the state does not have a comprehensive database of public end roads, there are likely thousands around Michigan.

“You go up north and every (public) road ends at a lake,” said Mike Kowall, a former township supervisor, Michigan State Representative and Michigan State Senator from White Lake Township.

Public road ends are considered easements, but there was little oversight of such land for decades. Bloom wrote in the Fall 2020 issue of Michigan Riparian, a publication of the Michigan Lakes and Streams Association, that boaters and anglers have long used public road ends to dock, moor or maintain watercraft on adjacent inland lakes. The state law was a bit hazy on the governance details during that time.

That all changed in 2012 with public Act 56, better known as the Public Road Ends at Lakes Law, a bill sponsored by Kowall, then a state senator. The new law updated a section of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act of 1994 pertaining to public road ends. Passed by the state legislature and signed by then Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, public Act 56 prohibits private docks, overnight boat mooring, and activities that obstruct ingress/egress at public road ends, with some exceptions for pre-existing court orders or plat dedications on public roads.

These restrictions are not applicable to private end roads, where the rights are determined by the private agreements and dedications.

The prohibition based on the 2012 law is for both private citizens and public entities like local municipalities, absent a local ordinance regulating private road ends at lakes. Private road ends that border on inland lakes are more difficult to police and are defined by the fact that the road is privately owned and not maintained by a local county road commission. Use and access to the lake from a private road end are typically limited to the specific property owners it serves, as defined by their deeds, easements, or private agreements, and subject to general riparian law principles, the law states.

Kowall said the idea for the bill was first proposed by his former township clerk as a way to prevent people from partying and making noise all hours of the night at public end roads, something that regularly happened on White Lake, located in Kowall’s hometown in northwest Oakland County. Once he started researching the issue, Kowall quickly realized this was an issue all over the state. He recalls learning about similar complaints from residents all across Michigan, including Fife, Hancock and Houghton lakes in the northern part of the state’s Lower Peninsula.

“We didn’t want people to use the (road ends) as an extension of their own property or as a place to hang out (days) at a time,” Kowall said. “Continued usage was really the problem.”

Public Act 56 also set a precedent for enforcement that previously didn’t exist, Bloom said. Policing and enforcement of public road ends has improved in the last 13 years, but “some police agencies still won’t write tickets,” he added. That’s why adjoining property owners are often forced to act as the enforcers of public Act 56 by contacting officials at their local communities.

The law codified several court decisions, making it a misdemeanor to “use road ends for placing boat hoists or boat anchorage systems, mooring or docking boats between midnight and sunrise and installing a dock or wharf.” The bill confirmed that the state’s Department of Environmental Quality would need to approve single season docks that were authorized by a local government body. The misdemeanor is punishable by a maximum fine of $500 per day of violation.

Kowall said the intent of the law was to empower residents with complaints about illegal activity at public end roads to contact their local municipalities. The law’s wording related to enforcement is purposely broad because since most county sheriff’s departments do not have a marine division that has the capacity to enforce activity on public road ends. It allows each community to make a determination about what agency or department will investigate and respond.

“When there’s an issue you let your local (municipality) know and hopefully they can issue the citation,” Kowall said. “If there’s a problem, contact someone. Perhaps it gets turned over to the local courts if needed and they take it from there.”

In addition to mooring and docking activities, public road ends were considered by some residents as public land available for their use, although that perception had no legal standing. Even after the institution of Act 56, some courts have ruled that public road ends on inland lakes can be used for temporary access to that lake since that water is owned by Michigan residents.

Residents though have generally not been granted rights for more permanent activities like docks, boat hoists, or multi-day lounging/picnicking, which are considered private riparian rights. There are some exemptions for limited public use. In Michigan law, "limited public use" for property rights refers to situations where the public has a right to use a private or government-owned property for specific, defined purposes, but not for general, unrestricted access or ownership.

Limited public use is a nuanced concept that can involve easements and right of way. An easement grants specific right to use another’s land for a particular purpose, according to the Grand Rapids law firm of Mika Meyers.

Notably the law does not affect lake the Great Lakes, which are governed by other laws given the federal government’s role. Ten U.S. federal agencies are involved in the protection and restoration of the Great Lakes, according to the MSU Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.

Public Act 56 also clarified that a private end road at a lake in Michigan is not part of the public highway system. Its use and access to the lake are typically limited to the specific property owners it serves, as defined by their deeds, easements, or private agreements, and subject to general riparian law principles. Furthermore, it laid out guidelines that private litigation is possible whenever a boat or dockage is Improperly maintained at a private road. That litigation is waived if a local municipality has an ordinance regulating private road ends at lakes.

In the 13 years since public Act 56 of 2012 was enacted, it is doing what it was intended to do, and has been upheld several times in Michigan courts, said Dan Dalton, partner and founder of Detroit-based Dalton & Tomich. The law sought to answer the question whether people could access an inland lake at a road end by building a dock or mooring a boat.

“Residents have the right to access an inland lake as a public body of water, but they do not have the right to build a dock at a road end bordering the lake,” Dalton said. “Several cases have interpreted the use end rule as an access point. They don’t have the right for a long-term (docking).”

Dalton said if a non-property owner wanted to access an inland lake at a private road end, their best bet would be to contact the landowner(s) for approval. Public Act 56 doesn’t specifically preclude people from loading a boat. But Dalton believes that action could be considered activity that restricts ingress or egress, which is written into the 2012 law.

“It depends on the local community so the law there is uncertain,” he said. Dalton, however, recommends that someone seeking access should receive approval from the lake road end property to remain in compliance with the law.

One of the first tests of the strength of public Act 56 of 2012 came in 2016 when the Michigan Court of Appeals addressed the statute in Colthurst v. Bryan. The public road right-of-way debate centered around a lake end road bordering Wamplers Lake in Lenawee County.

It had been common for area residents or local neighbors to install a dock and moor boats seasonally at public road ends bordering Wamplers Lake for several decades, without explicit approval from the property owners. The legal issue arose because the owner of one of the adjoining riparian or waterfront lots objected to these activities at the public road end they owned, filing a lawsuit in 2016.

The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the riparian lot owner and required that the private docks and boats be removed from the public road end, rejecting arguments from the defense that the other residents, which included backlot owners, had a vested right in dockage and boat moorage at the public road prior to the 2012 law.

“Just because you have the right to access (an inland lake) and have docked boats there before, it doesn’t mean you (always) have that right,” Dalton said. “A public road should not be used as such. It can’t be pre-empted by previous acts.”

In other words, there is no right to adverse possession, which is more commonly known as “squatter’s rights.” Adverse possession is a principle under which a person who does not have legal title to a piece of property, most often real estate, may acquire legal ownership of it.

State law determines if there’s a specific period of time during which the land is possessed by this non property owner for the land to be acquired by that individual(s). The law of adverse possession for real estate is primarily in Michigan, which is governed by Michigan Compiled Laws § 600.5801 and by various case law examples. That law provides for a 15-year statutory period, but the ruling in Colthurst v Bryan did not offer defendants that right.

Another case was that tested the strength of Act 56 of 2012 was the Township of Grayling v Berry in 2019 in which the township sued private parties to enforce the law that docks and moorings were not allowed at a site at Portage Lake Park near Jackson, Michigan. The Court of Appeals decided on July 13, 2019, that the township did have the right to sue a group of residents to enforce the specifics of Act 56, further cementing the law’s provisions.

A third case in 2024, Barlet v Lake City, involved the topic of rights of access, where the court looked at a plat map for non-adjacent owners to see if there was history of property use for docking or mooring. While the court generally ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, it created the potential for an exception if the plat map provides access for non-property owners. A plat map is a legal document that defines and depicts a specific piece of land, its divisions and usage.

“The bottom line is that as a property owner, I have the right to limit access to lakes on end roads,” Dalton said. This includes the right to preclude access from docking or mooring boats. The law also gives both public entities and private citizens, as property owners of the land in question, to enforce the law as written.

Bloom also wrote about the impact of public Act 56 in a spring 2018 newsletter article in the Michigan Riparian. While taking a retrospective look of the law, he wrote in that newsletter that most Michigan residents comply with the statue and that the majority of local municipalities have respected the statue and agreed to comply with its working. It’s a view Bloom still holds today.

“In most cases though that law wouldn’t be enforced because 98 percent of the time it would be a (first responder), or occasionally a (local municipality) and they just didn’t enforce it,” Bloom said recently. “(Adjoining) neighbors would have had to bring a lawsuit.”

Whether local authorities enforce the law is another issue. If local municipalities and their law enforcement agency partners are not actively patrolling that property, Dalton agrees with Kowall in suggesting adjoining landowners contact their local for assistance. At the very least, law enforcement officials will likely acknowledge and respond to the complaint.

“Often (local officials) won’t enforce the laws (at a lake end road) on their own so you will want to bring it to the attention (of local authorities) as the landowner,” Dalton said. “They may not even know there are issues there because if can be such a small (piece of land).”

If enforcement doesn’t occur, Dalton recommends the landowner contact a lawyer experienced in riparian law to consider filing a suit for enforcement. Kowall believes a protracted legal battle would be the exception rather than the norm. If a legal issue does persist, the related legal costs would come out of the landowner’s pocket, which could quickly get restrictive depending on the situation.

“You will have to make that decision if you want to (enforce) that privacy,” Dalton said. ‘It may or may not be worth it financially. The legal process can take some time.”

Chris Matteson served as president of the Michigan Anglers Association but hasn’t been on the board for 10 years. He remembers how it was common for boaters and anglers to launch their boat from a public end road into an inland lake, and that property owners never seemed to mind for years, provided the boaters were respectful of the property.

Yet as lakefront property values rose, adjoining property owners began to care more about such actions from members of the public, Matteson said. Many lakefront property owners statewide restricted access to their land and considered a nearby easement with access to be off-limits as well. Matteson said that many other lakefront property owners let areas of road end parcels connected to inland lakes grow wildly with tree, bushes and shrubs, which serve as a deterrent to public road end usage.

“I understand how valuable that land is, but it’s gotten to the point where many people just want to protect every square inch of land they own on the water,” Matteson said. “There used to be more (neighborly) friendliness about it. But it’s their property, they can do what they want.”

Matteson said that anglers in particular accessed lakes through these public end roads and other easements bordering inland lakes. Such anglers otherwise lack direct lake access and/or used small boats with or without an engine, which cause few if any noise or environmental issues.

While enforcement of the law often relies on lake property owners to report issues, Kowall said most lake property owners won’t hesitate. In fact, these property owners usually pay close attention to what’s happening on their lake. Kowall referenced an example in White Lake Township where multiple resident complaints to local authorities resulted in a public end road that dead ends into a lake being permanently fenced off.

“Everybody who lives on a lake knows everyone else on it,” Kowall said. “They will notice if there’s a different boat or new people and they’ll start asking questions. (Local residents) will help to police (end roads).

The Road Commission for Oakland County is not an option for enforcement of public end roads. The commission maintains any publicly traveled roadway, either gravel or paved, that leads up to any public road ends in the county, according senior communications director Craig Bryson. However, the road commission does not maintain the land if there is no actual road on the road end. The road commission would also maintain any traffic lights leading up to but not including a public road end.

Bryson confirmed that the Road Commission for Oakland County dos not actively get involved in any adjoining neighbor disputes over the use of public road ends. “(We) would not typically contact law enforcement – residents can do that, of course, if they feel there is a need,” he said.

Bloom said that people technically aren’t allowed to even lounge or sunbathe at a public road end without approval of the public entity, often the county road commission. However, residents who carry canoes or kayaks to the public road end for entering the lake do not present a legal issue, he added. Loading or unloading a boat for daily use is another issue, since that action could harm the land,

“Generally, you’d need permission of the local commission for (day loading) but they might not give it to you,” Bloom said.

Residents might be able to legally load or unload a boat on a single day, provided they don’t construct a dock to do so. They could use a dock that is already built on that easement, but it is unlikely there are many such docks in the state, Bloom surmised. He called the theoretical addition of a dock by a public entity at a lake road end “foolish.”

“The liability potential would be huge to (legally) construct a dock at most public road ends,” Bloom said. “It’s just not a smart idea. It can lead to environmental damage as well as the risk of (injury).”

Another reason Act 56 of 2012 was written to be enforced statewide was the potential ecological damage that illegal activity at road ends could cause on a lake, Kowall said. For example, people docking a boat for multiple days without property on the lake are less likely to be aware of invasive species their boat may be bringing into a lake.

“You’re more likely to get zebra mussels and other invasive species,” Kowall said. “These boats that are (launched) on multiple lakes are a potential harvester of weeds that can kill fish. It can be just as bad as dumping raw sewerage into the lake.”

Looking back, Kowall is still surprised about how common it was to have illegal activity happening at public end roads around the state when he first researched the issue and eventually sponsored the bill that would define illicit activity at these easements.

Oakland County with its many lakes has more boats and boaters than just about anywhere but Macomb County, Kowall added. The lake traffic alone makes the management of public road ends an important one.

“It turned out to be a bigger issue than I ever would have expected,” Kowall said. “You can see why so many people cared about it.”