Key Land Use Legislation Moves
to Governor's Desk
Joint Planning Empowers Communities, Slows Sprawl
|
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Thursday, November 13, 2003
|
CONTACTS:
Conan Smith, MEC
517-487-9539
Brian Imus, PIRGIM
734-717-6597
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LANSING
- The state Senate moved key legislation
today to curb sprawl and encourage more regional solutions
to land use problems. The bill, which now moves to Governor
Granholm's desk for expected approval, provides local governments
the power to create joint planning commissions. According
to the Michigan Environmental Council, who helped draft the
legislation, House Bill 4284 provides an important tool for
communities working to protect Michigan's unique landscape
from fast-paced, haphazard development. Joint Planning was
among the 150 recommendations of the bipartisan Michigan Land
Use Leadership Council, and was recently cited by Granholm
as one of her highest priorities for land use reform.
LANSING-The state
Senate moved key legislation today to curb sprawl and encourage
more regional solutions to land use problems. The bill, which
now moves to Governor Granholm's desk for expected approval,
provides local governments the power to create joint planning
commissions. According to the Michigan Environmental Council,
who helped draft the legislation, House Bill 4284 provides
an important tool for communities working to protect Michigan's
unique landscape from fast-paced, haphazard development. Joint
Planning was among the 150 recommendations of the bipartisan
Michigan Land Use Leadership Council, and was recently cited
by Granholm as one of her highest priorities for land use
reform.
Michigan's more than 1500 individual
units of government with planning authority currently do not
have the legal ability to work together to address land use
concerns of regional significance. Joint planning is a voluntary
tool local governments may use in order to create legally
binding plans to manage the growth of their overall community
while protecting the region's character and economic base.
"Planning across jurisdictional
boundaries simply makes good economic and environmental sense,"
says Conan Smith, Land Programs Director at the Michigan Environmental
Council. "It ensures that our communities make smart
investments in road and sewer infrastructure and valuable
land resources, and that transportation planning and school
placement decisions compliment rather than contradict the
plans made by neighboring governments. Legislative leaders
like Rep. Chris Kolb have stepped up and provided local communities
the tools they need to take control of development."
Under current law, counties,
townships and cities are each required to work under different
planning procedures and coordinating plans would require translating
their intentions into three separate plans, each with unique
language and regulations-an unnecessary and wasteful chore.
Passage of House Bill 4284 allows one planning commission
to work with multiple jurisdictions on one set of zoning and
planning guidelines.
"Planning regionally puts
power back into the hands of local governments, because business
and developers can no longer pit local governments against
one another," says Brian Imus, of the Public Interest
Research Group in Michigan. "The old way has created
costly legal battles, annexations and poor development choices.
Joint planning commissions allow governments to make fiscally
sounds decisions and protect community character and identity."
