FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, December 18, 2003
More Information:
Conan Smith, MEC: 517-487-9539
Brian
Imus, PIRGIM:
734-717-6597
LANSING—Curb sprawl! Save local Mom-and-Pop stores,
and protect your scenic rivers and farmland! Build bike trails, make a “hip and cool”
downtown and add affordable houses with front porches to your quiet, tree-lined
streets! Today, thanks to fresh new legislation shepherded through a
Republican-dominated legislature by the Michigan Environmental Council and the
Public Interest Research Group in Michigan (PIRGIM), you can!
More than a symbolic keepsake, HB4284 is true
progressive land use reform. With
your help, it can bring regional cooperation to an ugly lawsuit, land use fight,
wetland destruction, or intergovernmental fiasco near you! The law empowers local governments to
form legally binding land use plans with their neighboring governments. With Governor Granholm’s signature
officially attached, it’s a rare treasure indeed, signaling a long-awaited shift
in priorities in a state that has failed to produce significant land use reform
in more than three decades.
“During three years of fighting off the legislative
roadblocks and big-money bullies, the Michigan Environmental Council and PIRGIM
never gave up on the idea of coordinated planning,” said Conan Smith, Land
Programs Director for the Michigan Environmental Council. “We kept listening to
the people who are suffering from competition-based local planning—like the
children in Detroit, the farmers in Ottawa County, and local businesspeople
stuck on vacated downtown mainstreets.
We brought this legislation to Rep. Chris Kolb (D-Ann Arbor) before
reforming land use in Michigan became such a popular
idea.”
“I hope this is the first of many actions the state
takes to help locals protect their communities,” said Brian Imus of PIRGIM. “How
many acres of precious land were lost while this legislation was being debated?
We don’t need more studies or more research; we need more cooperation and
regional planning. These are tools local governments have been trying to utilize
without legal basis for years, and those local officials would be the first to
tell you that regional cooperation is the only way to make land use planning
work for everyone—not just the townships that throw away their farmland in
exchange for another short-lived strip mall or upscale housing
development.”
(over)
Try “Joint Planning” for yourself and see how
effective cooperation can be. Just visit your local planning board meeting today
and demand that your elected officials stop squabbling with their neighbors and
kowtowing to Big Development mega-projects for pittance increases in residential
tax base! Tell them to plan
cooperatively, and bring the full force of all the resources in your region to
the table to create a land use and economic plan that protects your farms,
forests, home values and downtown mainstreets.
Joint Planning—ask for it by name! (Available now in one of the more than 1500 townships, cities and villages doing the planning near you. Visit www.mecprotects.org and www.pirgim.org)