County-Wide Survey Results

Detailed results and citizen comments

• On Coordinating Land Use Planning and Zoning
• See Aerial Photographs of Kalamazoo County from 1964 and 1999
• See Land Use Planning Maps

Discussion

Some sort of zoning was preferred by almost all respondents in the random survey, and over 68% of those surveyed said that lack of zoning was the worst development alternative. According to an elected township official in a focus group, "Zoning is not a democratic process. If we all lived by the golden rule, we wouldn't need zoning. But, you have rights when you buy property, you get the bundle of rights that come with the property. And you can use that bundle of rights right up till the point where you impact your neighbor. When you start to impact on your neighbor, that's when you have to have a law, because the golden rule isn't gonna work."

Greater Kalamazoo Community Convention Outcomes:

[About the Convention]

Statements agreed upon by 100% of participants:

• We stand for managing growth and planning for the reasonable development of our community.
• We stand for establishing future growth zones.
• We stand for creating as much consensus as possible within the county on land use issues.

Strategies for achieving what "we stand for," overwhelmingly supported by participants:

• Lobby the state for regional land use planning.
• Create a county-wide planning authority to make land-use and transportation strategies to enhance livability and sustainability.
• Form a group (or help an existing group) to develop a plan to present to the state legislature of proposed changes in the legal structures, re: local/regional government. For example: enabling legislation to permit the county commission or some other regional entity to have authority regarding regional land use planning and other regionally important issues.