A rapidly growing Lake Leelanau business is struggling to find adequate office space, and restrictive zoning laws may be the problem.

Oneupweb, which helps companies achieve better placement in search engine results like Google, has grown rapidly over the past six years, outgrowing offices in Traverse City, Suttons Bay, and Lake Leelanau, according to this article from the Michigan Land Use Institute. The company's owner would like to stay in Lake Leelanau, but zoning laws designed to promote residential uses and small businesses only within town limits are making it difficult to find a downtown commercial lot large enough to accommodate the growing firm.

Advocates for economic development and smart growth in Leelanau County, like Don Coe of Black Star Farms, point out that knowledge-based businesses like Oneupweb will benefit the county in a number of ways: they provide well-paying, year-round jobs that do not destroy farmland or the Leelanau landscape. Preserving the landscape and quality of life in Leelanau County is essential to not only tourism (including the agricultural tourism that many see as the county's future), but also to attracting the kinds of young, dynamic companies and workers that can grow the county's economy.

It would be ironic if master plans and zoning laws that were intended to preserve rural character and small-town life would have the effect of undermining them. Planners and others should seek ways to encourage the growth of businesses that invigorate the local economy without encroaching on farmland or the landscape.