 |
CONVENING
FOR ACTION |
Project
Summary: This is an action oriented
project which will create a countywide voluntary land use planning
procedure. Project outcomes include a
Land Use Advocacy Group, a Peer Site Review Committee, a GIS-based booklet of
unique sites in the county, and a guidebook to citizen participation in land
use planning.
Kalamazoo County is much like other urban areas in Michigan. Our population is moving out of the core
city into the adjoining townships. Our
farmland is sprouting subdivisions.
Yet, our population and economic base are not growing; instead, our jobs
and people are being redistributed, creating a demand for ever more
infrastructure and straining financial and other resources of the twenty-four
political jurisdictions in this county.
One of the most pressing issues for our county is to find ways to
protect our unique and important regional resources while working together to
create a healthier, more economically dynamic community.
We first addressed this issue in an
earlier project entitled "Convening Our Community: Building the Political
Will for Creative Change" that lasted from February 1999 through August
2000. A complete description of the
project and its outcomes can be found at our web site (http://www.kzoo.edu/convene). One of the main outcomes of that project
was a set of four declarations developed through consensus in a series of
meetings with people holding diverse views from throughout Kalamazoo
County. One of these declarations
addressed land use issues in the county (http://www.kzoo.edu/convene/docs/landUseDecl.pdf).
The Convening Our Community project has created an
environment in which Convening for Action is both needed and feasible. Based on the consensus vision and goals
developed in the earlier Convening Our Community project, and drawing from land
use planning models used in other communities, this project will build the
foundation for a dynamic and sustainable land use planning process in Kalamazoo
County (and, by extension, for other counties in Michigan).
In Convening for Action, we propose
to develop mechanisms to 1) implement many of the items addressed in the land
use declaration, and 2) advocate for legislative change on the local and state
levels that will enable the implementation of other items in this
declaration. We will accomplish six
main tasks (discussed in more detail below):
1)
Identify
the natural and historic features of our community as well as its key open
spaces. Through various means described
in detail below, we will ask community members to do the identification
2)
Compile
the information about the nominated sites into a GIS-based document that will
be available on our web site and in printed form.
3)
Compile
a "rules of the game" booklet.
This will be a practical guide to land use planning and citizen
involvement for interested county residents in general and for project
participants, specifically.
4)
Convene
a Land Use Planners Group made up of a diverse group of county residents
interested in land use to design criteria for identifying the key features and
sites in the community, apply these criteria to the nominated list of sites,
and brainstorm ways in which to preserve these sites and create more
coordinated planning by all levels of government. The group will present its findings to local governments, our
local legislators, and to the broader community.
5)
Create
a Peer Site Review Committee, similar to the one in Traverse City, to help
economic developers take proactive measures to address common community
concerns.
6)
Create
a Land Use Advocacy Group that will comment on an on-going basis on major
projects, advocate for the adoption of pro-smart growth policies initiated in
the land use group in the fourth activity and comment on other land use
initiatives undertaken in the county and state.
"Never
doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the
world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead