Senator McBroom’s statement is as follows:
Mr. President, this state is seeming to have a bit of a crisis of dual personalities when it comes to local control and zoning, etc. We forced zoning on our local communities a number of years ago—a lot of push to do that in the first decade of this century—then we continue to roll that back, whether we’re passing an energy bill or whether we’re telling them how to do zoning this way. Why do we continue down this road of zoning at all at this point? What do we really believe? I don’t understand the dual personalities that seem to go on, where we say, Sure, locals, do all of this planning; you have to follow all of these guidelines but, oh by the way, over here, we’re going to take that over. Or, Now we’re going to tell you exactly what they have to look like.
The communities can already add these plans to their planning documents. Why do we need to mandate this? I find the whole exercise in zoning—particularly as a person coming from a rural area—to be very frustrating and very discouraging to my local communities and, ultimately, to our development because they’re not nimble plans. They take an inordinate amount of time to work through and they don’t allow local needs to be addressed in a very fast way. I think this is a shortsighted and just another weird way of nibbling at local control from the state. I recommend a “no” vote.
Senator Klinefelt asked and was granted unanimous consent to make a statement and moved that the statement be printed in the Journal.
The motion prevailed.
Senator Klinefelt’s statement is as follows:
I would just like to point out for the record that the Michigan Municipal League and the Michigan Townships Association are both in favor of this bill. If they were concerned about a grab on local control, I don’t think they would be.
The following bill was read a third time:
House Bill No. 5598, entitled
A bill to amend 1883 PA 98, entitled “An act to punish persons who procure or place upon record spurious or fraudulent conveyances of real estate, with intent to deceive,” by amending the title and section 1 (MCL 565.371).
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: