Opinion ID: 848766
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: township zoning act

Text: The lead opinion's interpretation of M.C.L. § 380.1263(3) is further refuted by the Township Zoning Act, pursuant to which township boards are authorized to regulate in a very broad manner land uses and development within their boundaries, including regulation of the location and size of buildings. [8] Moreover, M.C.L. § 125.271 specifically allows townships to facilitate adequate and efficient provision for ... education.... Similarly, M.C.L. § 125.273 provides: The zoning ordinance shall be based upon a plan designed to ... facilitate adequate provision for a system of transportation, sewage disposal, safe and adequate water supply, education, recreation, and other public requirements.... These provisions generally recognize the zoning and land-use authority of townships, as well as the specific role of zoning and land-use authority in promoting a system of education. Because the Legislature has authorized township boards to comprehensively regulate land use, and has specifically authorized townships to enact zoning ordinances in order to provide for the area's education requirements, I do not believe that the superintendent's authority under M.C.L. § 380.1263(3) can reasonably be construed to displace all local zoning and land-use ordinances that, in any way, affect school site plans. The breadth of the Township Zoning Act is inconsistent with the notion that the Legislature would have compromised this authority through statutory silence and indirection. Given the integrated and coordinated nature of most zoning and land-use plans, in which the whole is affected by the part, the conferral of authority upon the superintendent to disregard local regulations concerning school sites carries with it a potential effect reaching far beyond these sites. In communities throughout the state, the most carefully considered and finely coordinated zoning and land-use plan will now potentially be subject to the disruptiveness of a contrary zoning or land-use decision made by the superintendent. Moreover, such a decision will be one undertaken by an unelected official who, almost certainly, will possess less familiarity with the needs and circumstances of these communities, and who will be less responsive to the people of these communities, than their own local officials.