Zoning & Politics

With all of Monday's disturbing news from the U.S. Supreme Court, you may have missed the very good analysis M-Live published on how the Michigan legislature has tied the hands of local governments and average citizens when a big natural resource extraction corporation comes to town.

The article, "Analysis: How state law took regulation of mining and drilling away from local municipalities",  analyzes the 2011 amendment to a 2006 zoning statute. The original language of the 2006 statute actually provided the foundation for the further erosion of local control that followed in 2011:

"(2) A county or township shall not regulate or control the drilling, completion, or operation of oil or gas wells or other wells drilled for oil or gas exploration purposes and shall not have jurisdiction with reference to the issue of permits for the location, drilling, completion, operation, or abandonment of such wells."

For voters in my district, this history is important because my opponent, Senator Joe Hune, voted for the passage of the original language as a State Representative, and then voted in favor of the 2011 Amendment as a State Senator.  In other words, he has a record of voting with corporate interests over  local control, making his statement to reporter Ben Freed that the statute provides "a balance between competing interests of property owners, neighbors and municipalities" pure political posturing.  As Ben Freed's title aptly notes, this statute severely restricts local ability to regulate in furtherance of the interests of local communities. It does this because it codifies a presumption that natural resource extraction is so good for society at large that it should trump local concerns.  

While my opponent tries to come out in support of the overwhelming citizen opposition to the McCoig permit application in Lyndon Township, what he is really saying is that he's satisfied with litigation as an inevitable outcome when citizens demand to be heard: "So, I don't think the local community should have a problem if indeed it does to go court."

We should not be striving for "zoning by litigation" where the deck is stacked against local control.  What we should be striving for, and what legislators should be doing in Lansing, is guaranteeing that citizen concerns are not constantly trumped by corporate interests. We should be striving for meaningful regulations that require full disclosure before a permit is issued and the opportunity for citizens to have a meaningful voice in whether a permit should issue. We should be striving for local control exercised on a playing field where the presumption favors people over special interests so that every exercise of that local control does not always result in expensive litigation.   

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/06/the_michigan_zoning_enabling_a.html#incart_river_default