More than just a “buzz phrase” in economic development circles, the concept of “regional quality of life” increasingly is prompting public, private and environmental organizations to drop their adversarial relationships and come to some consensus around issues of land use, says Gil White, immediate past president of the Michigan Association of Realtors.
Land use has been on Michigan’s radar for more than a decade, as the state’s verdant farmland and miles of coastline have become increasingly attractive to housing and commercial developers. During that time, the piecemeal efforts of individuals and organizations concerned about poorly planned land-use patterns have become unified and coordinated into the Michigan Smart Growth Agenda, thanks to partnerships among several unlikely allies.
“The primary question being asked in Lansing today is no longer ‘What is sprawl?’ but ‘What do we do about sprawl?’” said Lana Pollack, Michigan Environmental Council (MEC) president.
Celebrating its 25th year of defending Michigan’s water, land and air, MEC is a coalition of 70 environmental, public health and faith-based organizations with almost 200,000 individual members. MEC has received more than $800,000 in Mott Foundation support for its Land Stewardship Initiative.
MEC approached the issue of land use in the same way it has approached a variety of Michigan’s environmental challenges: identifying and bringing together likely allies and then inviting other stakeholders -- not necessarily friendly -- to the discussion table.
“We’ve been referred to as ‘quiche-eating, sandal-wearing freakazoids’ by former foes turned partners,” said Conan Smith, former director of land programs at MEC and now executive director of the Michigan Suburbs Alliance, one of several agencies collaborating with MEC to advance the idea of smart growth in Michigan.
Environmentalists, developers, Realtors and politicians were running a collision course on land-use issues in the early 1990s, according to White.
“We could spend all day finding things we could disagree about. Each of us had the power to derail legislation that would benefit the other,” he said of early efforts to discuss patterns of housing, industrial and commercial development.
“It was becoming more and more clear that we had to make the shift from a fractured, micro-perspective to a more macro-view of land use if we were going to move things forward.”
In an effort to be proactive around land-use decisionmaking, MEC facilitated a series of meetings over an 18-month period that included the Michigan Association of Realtors, the Michigan United Conservation Clubs, the Michigan Farm Bureau, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Michigan Association of Home Builders and, later, the Michigan Townships Association and the Michigan Municipal League.
Together, the organizations banded together around “one bite of the land-use apple” and crafted policy around compact development of new housing, White said.
“I honestly believe that our work -- and the trust that was built -- laid the groundwork for the creation of the Michigan Land Use Leadership Council,” he said of the bipartisan committee created by Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm.
Those discussions eventually morphed into the Michigan Smart Growth Agenda, a detailed policy agenda that was shaped by and later endorsed by more than 100 growth management activists and stakeholder groups, and that guides MEC’s Land Stewardship Initiative. This work was incorporated into a set of recommendations contained in a 2003 report, Michigan’s Land, Michigan’s Future, by the Michigan Land Use Leadership Council, which counted MEC’s Pollack among its 26 members.
Currently, 28 land-use reform bills have passed into law and another 40 are at various stages of progress in the Legislature. A key piece of legislation -- a planning/zoning consolidation bill that proposes a uniform set of guidelines for Michigan’s 1,800 units of government with planning authority -- is in the pipeline.
Despite great progress in articulating Michigan’s land-use issues, much work remains to be done. More conversations must be facilitated, more education must take place.
“To secure long-lasting, systemic land-use reform, state officials must adopt a clear set of statewide land-use goals and institutionalize these goals as a means to educate and encourage local communities to adopt smart growth land-use planning tools,” Pollack said.
More joint planning by local officials is necessary, she continued. Finally, public, private and nonprofit interests must push for the adoption of a priority-funding approach that discourages unplanned sprawl and targets state resources to support established communities.
“As Governor Granholm has said, Michigan’s 37 million acres is all we will ever have,” White said. “We have to put aside our individual interests. The way we’ve been dealing with land use is not sustainable. A key to Michigan’s future economy hangs on the quality of life in our communities.”