LAKE VERMILION — A long-running battle over a proposed Lake Vermilion campground meant to serve disabled veterans has seen court filings, environmental review fights, zoning denials, and yet, now into its third summer, the site continues to operate.
That disconnect has left some residents around Black Bay scratching their heads and others seething, wondering how a project rejected on multiple levels continues without any apparent consequences.
At the center of the controversy is Rough-N-It campground developer Christine Wyrobek, who in 2023 set up the nonprofit and proposed developing campsites on nearly 45 acres of rugged, water-access-only property on the bay. She pitched the campground as a nature-based retreat for veterans, but her proposal quickly ran into stiff local opposition from residents of Beatty Township.
The St. Louis County Planning Commission and County Board ultimately rejected her rezoning request, citing concerns about spot zoning, emergency access, and a lack of public benefit.
But that didn’t stop development. Wyrobek opened the campground anyway, advertising “glamping” sites on Facebook in August 2023.
She maintains that the current residential zoning allows temporary shelters. The county disagrees and says that no permit has ever been issued for short-term commercial use. County Planning and Zoning Director Ryan Logan told the Timberjay recently that they are still investigating the matter and cannot comment on details, an all-too-familiar refrain residents have been hearing for nearly two years.
In the meantime, Wyrobek took the county to court, arguing that her project should have been automatically approved because the county missed a statutory deadline. A district judge rejected that claim, ruling that an environmental petition had legally paused the timeline and that only the county board, not the planning commission, had the authority to decide rezoning. The suit was dismissed.
Most recently, in September 2024, the county board again denied the rezoning request, this time quietly as part of a consent agenda. Wyrobek criticized the move.
Today, the campground is in its third season of operation. The zoning is still residential. And people are still asking: What’s being done about it?
Township evolution
When Wyrobek first began the process, she met with the Beatty Town board to review her proposal, according to town supervisor Earl Grano. If the town board would have given its blessing, Grano said, it likely could have tilted the process in favor of the campground. However, the board decided to remain neutral.
But when the Raps Road Association reported that they had more than 100 signatures on a petition opposing the campground, then-chairman Grano decided it was time to take a second look.
“The opposition was growing more and more, and we were getting numerous calls asking, ‘Can you help us in preventing this from happening,’” Grano said.
They consulted their attorney, Michael Couri, who advised they had an obligation to represent residents, Grano said.
“So finally, we agreed that yes, we will do what we can to make sure the laws are followed,” he said. “When things are of great concern to our residents, we have to be the spokesperson for them.”
The petition ultimately hit 182 signatures, just over half of the township’s population in the most recent census data. And Grano has remained engaged ever since, meeting with county officials and attending and speaking at many of the hearings that have been held.
He estimated that roughly 100 residents made the drive to Virginia for one meeting to demonstrate their opposition to the plan.
“I’ve never seen frustration like this vented in anything we’ve ever experienced before,” Grano said.
Local disruption
None feel that frustration more than Lisa Simensen, who lives with her husband, Philip, at the end of Raps Road, a little over 200 feet away from the lots Wyrobek uses for customer parking, storage and launching boats to ferry people to the campground. And it didn’t take long at all for one of her concerns to be realized.
“The very first person that showed up came down our driveway to our house and said, ‘Where do I park for camping?’” she recalled. Thus began a regular stream of lost campers intruding on the Simensens’ property. One of the most disconcerting encounters came late at night.
“I’ve documented all of these. One was at 10 o’clock at night,” she said. “I don’t feel safe with campers, random people coming down into my driveway. I don’t really feel safe in the neighborhood.”
Simensen said she eventually called the sheriff’s office after repeated incidents of campers turning into her driveway. When a deputy arrived, she expected at least some validation of her concerns, but the response wasn’t what she hoped for.
“He seemed very put out that he had to come out,” she said. “He said, ‘Oh, well, you don’t have a no trespassing sign,’” Simensen recalled.
Simensen said the lack of any clear signage for the campground only adds to the confusion. A neighboring property hasn’t fared any better, as campers have pulled down a drive to a private boathouse and parked there, Simensen said.
Safety is a broader concern. Simensen said she and her neighbors have repeatedly raised the issue of speeding, citing a recent incident she said involved one of the campground workers.
“They drive very fast,” she said. “My husband was taking our granddaughter home … when one of her workers came flying down the hill … and he had to go off the road and drive under the power line because he was going so fast.”
And Simensen is frustrated, too, with the county’s complaint process. She said the planning and zoning department changed the reporting form during the process, and after contacts with the department she’s fearful many of her early complaints may have been lost.
“They said, ‘Well, it looks like maybe we got insufficient copies of those, or they didn’t come through all the way,’” she said.
Environmental impact
For Jon Grinnell, whose family owns property on both sides of the Rough-N-It campground, the biggest concern isn’t the noise or the traffic – it’s what the operation might be doing to the environment.
“It’s a fairly significant footprint in an ecologically sensitive area,” he said. “It’s very clear in zoning regs that if you’re renting spots on residential property, that falls under the short-term rental guidelines, and those guidelines require a septic system.”
And what’s more troubling, he added, is how easily the system designed to protect places like this seems to have broken down.
Grinnell was the original author of the petition that called for an Environmental Assessment Worksheet, a legally required review of potential environmental impacts when certain types of development are proposed. The county had initially agreed one would be needed, but after a court ruling related to zoning procedures, the county dropped the requirement.
“I was disappointed when they, for whatever reason, decided that they weren’t going to enforce that,” Grinnell said. “Because I think, given the activity there, we really need to know what is the potential impact to the environment.”
That wasn’t the only legal obligation Grinnell believes the county has sidestepped. He pointed out that the county’s own ordinances are clear: If renting is the primary purpose for shelters on residential properties, that becomes classified as a commercial operation. And commercial uses aren’t allowed in residential zones.
To Grinnell, that’s a critical line that’s been crossed, and one the county can’t continue to ignore.
A dangerous precedent?
For Beatty Township resident Michelle Manick, the ongoing lack of enforcement against Rough-N-It isn’t just frustrating – she believes it’s sending a message to every property owner on Lake Vermilion: Rules no longer apply.
“I started telling my customers, ‘Hey, you want to do something? Do it now,’” she said. “‘(The lack of zoning enforcement) is telling every St. Louis County resident you can do whatever you want, and the county isn’t going to do anything about it.’”
Manick and her family run a lake-based business that installs docks and lifts. With hundreds of clients over the years, she’s watched lake property owners go through the formal channels, only to be denied plans for modest improvements. That makes the campground’s unchecked operation all the more egregious.
“Everybody else has had to go through the proper channels, follow the proper procedure, do the proper paperwork,” she said, “and yet now they’re just letting (Wyrobek) get by with nothing.”
For Manick, the time for county action is far overdue.
“They have got to make a stand on this,” she said, “because this is going to open a whole big can of worms if they don’t do something. And they need to do it like yesterday.”
Through the courts
Dick Nowlin, one of the state’s preeminent land use attorneys, also has property on the west end of Lake Vermilion, and he believes the county’s handling of the Rough-N-It campground has gone far past frustrating.
“I think it’s a shame that the county won’t enforce its own ordinances,” he said. “Because that’s what it comes down to.”
Nowlin was among the many residents who objected to the original rezoning request, which the Planning Commission rejected on the grounds that it constituted illegal spot zoning. That should have ended the story, he said, but it didn’t.
“This is spot zoning at its worst,” Nowlin said. “The Planning Commission understood that and rejected it. And then she just goes ahead and does it anyway.”
He believes the only way forward now may be through the courts.
“It’s probably going to take a lawsuit against the county for non-enforcement before they’ll do anything,” he said. “There are avenues to bring an action against a governmental entity for failing to perform what its duties are, and that’s what’s going on here.”
But for Nowlin, it’s not just about this one case – it’s about what comes next if the county continues to look the other way.
“If they don’t shut this thing down, it says to everybody else that the ordinances don’t matter,” he said. “And then what’s the point of having them?”