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Why It Matters — Great Places By Design
Despite compounding environmental and economic threats, community planning in Michigan is most often characterized by a lack of coordination with regard to land use planning and policy. More than 1,800 units of government, from schools to townships to state agencies, have some sort of land use planning authority in Michigan. This lack of cohesiveness often leads to costly duplication of services and investments while posing an incredible challenge for a state that relies heavily on its natural resource base for economic enhancement and stability.
Bruising annexation battles over tax base have wasted limited public resources. Local zoning policies have left communities voiceless on activities in neighboring communities that affect them. Older communities are feeling the pressures of growing social strain and the bite of state fiscal policies that favor growing places over established ones. Regional solutions have become even more important at this time of economic stress because they offer concrete tools to increase regional efficiency and make the best use of limited public resources.
Michigan communities face a wide variety of fiscal conditions among increasingly dire conditions. This fiscal divide is driven largely by Michigan local governments' heavy reliance on locally generated tax revenues to pay for public services, leading to fierce competition for developments (which, in truth, rarely generate more in taxes than they cost in public services). Intense pressure to grab new development leaves little room for communities to cooperate on land use planning or other efforts that can help rein in sprawl. These pressures help drive the outward growth of Michigan's regions, encouraging communities to quickly develop land that may be more appropriately preserved for habitat, farming, or more thoughtful development in the future.
At the local level, planning that is characterized by competition for tax base pits neighboring communities against each other while allowing single governments to make decisions with regional and eco-system wide impacts. Consider a recent proposal in Milan Township in Monroe County to build a 1,000-acre rail transfer facility on historically agricultural land. The project would not only have transformed a quiet rural community into a bustling industrial center, but the environmental impacts would have dramatically changed access to the aquifer for citizens in neighboring London Township — the project could have potentially lowered the water table below the wells of many citizens. The decision to allow this project, however, lay completely in the hands of the five Milan township board members. The neighbors felt completely powerless concerning a decision that could completely alter their lives.
A more regional approach to land use and economic growth will provide new and better tools for local governments. Relying on competition rather than cooperation puts natural resources and quality of life in jeopardy.
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