MEC staff works to protect Michigan's land. Read about:
THE SITUATION
Future
land use decisions will determine how our incredible and
irreplaceable resources are shared among the many people
of the Great Lakes state. Will our children be able to
walk to the sandy dunes of lake Michigan, or eat fresh
cherries from the orchards of the Old Mission Peninsula?
Will tomorrow's college graduates find the jobs and homes
they want here in our cities, or will they take their
talents and plans to Chicago, Boston and San Francisco
instead? Will farming have a future here? Will our state
grow in a way that provides choices in lifestyle, jobs
and homes and protects our natural environment, or will
we build a bland landscape that limits the places we can
live and the places we can enjoy?
Those
are the questions the Michigan Environmental Council
has been working hard to answer for almost 25 years.
Recently, as members of the influential Michigan Land
Use Leadership Council, we worked to ensure that future
land use decisions will be fair and provide our communities
with jobs, homes and a chance to enjoy Michigan's natural
treasures.
26
individuals representing diverse stakeholder interests
from across the state were selected for the council,
including Lana Pollack of the Michigan Environmental
Council and Hans Voss of the Michigan Land Use Institute.
MEC is strongly supportive of nearly every one of the
more than 160 recommendations included in the final
report of the group, entitled "Michigan's Land,
Michigan's Future" (online at www.michiganlanduse.org).
We believe that if the state began immediately implementing
the recommendations of Council, our state could and
local governments could do a better job of protecting
our agricultural heritage, strengthening our economy,
and building towns and cities where people can live
well with choices that enrich our great state.
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SOLUTIONS ACHIEVED IN 2006
Land Use Leadership Council Review
Three years after Gov. Granholm’s Land Use Leadership Council completed its blue ribbon report, MEC took stock of what had actually been achieved. Being generous, we could say that a lot remains to be done.
By working with the Michigan Association of Realtors and other non-traditional allies, MEC scored a series of legislative victories in 2006, including elimination of burdensome “pop up” taxes on lands with conservation easements and several measures to encourage regional planning for Smart Growth.
Smart Growth Efforts
MEC helped orchestrate several successful Smart Growth conferences focusing on land preservation, infill development and required federal storm water planning.
Upper Peninsula Protection
MEC staff worked with local activists and national organizations to orchestrate a campaign against a proposal to mine in the UP’s spectacular resources. Such mining, now on hold due to a cover-up of important inspection documents at the Department of Environmental Quality, could generate battery-acid strength waste laced with heavy metals.
Preventing Forest Fragmentation
MEC’s efforts on the mines opened up a host of new relationships in the UP, where the storied legacy of publicly accessible open space is being chipped away by forest fragmentation. MEC’s work with timber industry leaders, local governments, state officials, and university researchers is helping equip the region with the tools to manage the new face of UP forest management.
Supporting Public Transit
After decades without effective mass transit, MEC supports Transportation Riders United’s efforts to create a pilot commuter rail line between Detroit and Ann Arbor.
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GOALS FOR 2007
We think of our future goals in at least three different categories. Click on the images below to read about our goals related to those topics:
Also, some of our more general goals include:
- Fully fund payments to local governments where state lands are held.
- Revive Michigan’s natural areas program, assuring long-term conservation of critical state-owned lands.
- Reform the ORV trails program by allowing use of the Off-Road Trail Vehicle Improvement Fund to restore private land damaged by ORV use and increasing Fund revenues.
- Get rid of loopholes and strengthen Michigan’s wetlands protection law.
- Promote sustainable forest management on state lands by removing “timber quotas” that skew policy away from what is best for long-term, native forest restoration.
Support the development of world-class public transit systems and invest to invigorate Michigan’s metropolitan areas.
- Support and approve funds to continue the development of regional transit initiatives, including the Ann Arbor-Detroit Commuter Rail Project (with federal matching dollars, light rail on the Woodward Corridor in Detroit, and streetcar projects in Grand Rapids.
- Review state funding programs that affect local land use plans and create incentives to reward communities that employ smart growth techniques.
- Streamline state laws affecting local land use planning and zoning to improve decision-making.
- Impose a moratorium on landfill expansion and place a surcharge on landfilled waste to protect public health and discourage out-of-state waste dumping in Michigan.
- Encourage municipalities to participate in the “Cool
Cities,” a program about rethinking the way we choose to
live, and putting a stop to urban flight once and for
all. Cities and towns across Michigan’s can be great
places to live, and by supporting redevelopment in existing
areas, we can reverse the trend. Cities offer us what
no cookie-cutter housing and shopping centers plopped
into cornfields ever will: a sense of history, aesthetics
and community.
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