Proposal Will Give Planning Commission Final Site Plan Review Authority
MIDLAND, Mich. — The City Council is passing the buck to the Planning Commission.
At the direction of the council, City staff leaders are preparing plans that will allow the commission — instead of the council — to have final authority of site plan reviews.
“This is trying to align ourselves with best practice across the state,” City of Midland Director of Planning and Community Development Grant Murschel told the City Paper. “We know that based off of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s Redevelopment Ready Community Program, they’re very clear that the best practice is to have your Planning Commission, as opposed to your legislative body, be the final approval on uses by right.”
Site plan reviews consist of an objective checklist relating to permitted uses by right. Because the review is by right, the process may not consider subjective objections, such as emotional reactions of neighbors or policy disagreements. Conditional use and zoning considerations, however, will still have to go through the City Council.
“The final authority for conditional use or special use , as well as zoning considerations, or re-zoning considerations — we’re not going to be touching that process, it would still all be with the City Council,” Mr. Murschel told the City Paper.
Mr. Murschel said that this proposal stems from the City’s annual planning retreat in January. The council directed City staff and the Planning Commission to explore it further. If the proposal moves forward, a final vote, after public hearings, is expected later this year.
“We are hoping to get this continued moving, if we do have an expedited schedule, it would be sometimes in May or June that we’d have final approval of a text amendment on this, or that would be when the consideration would be, but it may be months after that depending on staff capacity,” Mr. Murschel told the City Paper.
Mr. Murschel says that even though site plans are reviewed objectively, there are still plenty of opportunities for public input in the process.
“Zoning considerations still have the ability for public input. There’s also consideration on conditional land use and things that are much more subjective, and so the folks’ ability within Midland to participate in the process is still going to be there for this, this is simply just changing the final approval authority,” Mr. Murschel told the City Paper.
The public will get a chance to comment on the proposal itself, before the matter is settled.
“If it continues to go forward, there would be a text amendment proposal, and as part of that text amendment, there would be a public hearing on both the Planning Commission level and additionally at City Council,” Mr. Murschel said.
Michael Westendorf is the chairman and executive editor of Chemical City Paper. As Executive Editor, he leads the City Paper’s news coverage and editorial team.