There's a right and wrong way to approach land use

In the 14 years I’ve spent involved with shaping public policy for the Michigan Association of REALTORS®, I’ve seen a lot of projects succeed and fail due to the way a local municipality deals with the private sector. Home rule, meaning those public officials who oversee local municipalities, is responsible for creating the master plans, zoning rules and regulations, and the various capital improvement programs that make up the overall framework within which a development project occurs.

Within the current framework of local government, it is not uncommon for home rule to take a planning and development approach by examining each project as it comes in on a case-by-case basis, then to pick apart the details. This micromanagement slows the process and puts undue burden on developers in allowing growth politics to enter the mix. Developers, REALTORS®, doctors, dentists, churches, or anyone else, who have an idea to legally utilize their land, as called for in comprehensive development plans and as zoned, do not deserve the extra cost, time or aggravation that go with micromanagement.

If we are to encourage innovative, smart growth initiatives with land use, then home rule needs to focus on regional quality of life issues, intergovernmental cooperation, capital improvements plans and development, improved communications and interactions with local school districts, and defining what design standards are important to citizenry, among other things. We want to create places where people want to live, work and play.

A primary focus of home rule needs to be on crafting win/win situations for smart growth developments. It’s a huge effort to change from the old way of thinking. I know this. We’re asking a huge amount from home rule, but unless there is a strategic shift in the way the process works, the idea of moving ahead with any of the recommendations from Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s Land Use Leadership Council last year simply won’t happen. Or at least not the way the council Intended.

One example of how smart growth can take place is the Bay Street Cottages development, in Harbor Springs. City planners here worked hand-in-hand with private developers, the Cottage Company, for a smart land use development.

The Bay Street Cottages are luxury condominiums built on the former site of an aging motel. The cottages are 18 stand-alone condos that reused the original wood floor from the hotel. There is an underground system in place to capture and filter storm water before it flows into the Bay, and the developers are planting 450 trees in Emmet County, the same amount of lumber used in creating the development.

On top of all that, the company is donating a portion of each condo’s sale to a local conservancy to purchase an easement on 35 acres of a centennial family farm north of town, ensuring that the farm is always an open space.

Albeit this is a luxury development that features units in the $400,000 to $500,000 price range, it is a perfect laboratory of finding out how smart growth can work. The trick, as you can probably guess, is to incorporate those ideas and innovations in middle-class and low-income developments.

Then we have The Beaumont development in East Lansing, an example of wasted time and effort in what I consider a well-thought-out development plan. Developers approached the city council with plans for 25 single-family homes in the $140,000 to $165,000 price range, 80 town houses in the $165,000 to $190,000 range and 320 luxury apartments complete with a clubhouse, fitness facility, pool and retail space.

I’m glad to say that the project is still moving. It’s sitting at the Department of Environmental Quality as the agency looks to investigate the impact of the development on surrounding wetlands, but it’s moving nonetheless. City officials tell me they’re optimistic that it is going to be a well-received project for East Lansing, but it is taking far too long. I spoke with the developers and they told me that it has taken more than 17 months and 23 revisions to get the plans to the point where they are now.
That’s just such a waste of time and money, and in the end it’s the communities and residents that suffer.

If the opportunity for change is going to occur, if the private sector will deliver new products to the marketplace at a faster, more innovative and affordable level for consumers, local government must change its focus from case by case micromanagement to a more macro type of approach.

If developers are going to create great neighborhoods, home rule has to approach land use and its partnering with the private sector in a non-mandatory, nonpunitive and ideally incentive-based approach.

We need to urge home rule to refocus its approach to planning so that we in the private sector know what is expected of us prior to coming in with the project, not after the fact.
Only then can the timely, cost-effective delivery of new and innovative projects of the marketplace occur. With the efforts of REALTORS® around the state, I know we can push for smart land use changes and make Michigan into a shining example for the rest of the country to follow.