Chairman Guts Zoning Ordinance in Final Meetings

Unprecedented ordinance increases development potential tenfold

Public Hearing May 21

After 3-year long process that involved dozens of meetings, hundreds of hours, and thousands of dollars in consulting fees, Elmwood Township is poised to ignore its own Master Plan. Townships develop such plans with extensive public input to guide the livability, safety, growth and tax structure of their communities.

Planning Commission Chairman John Gallagher has led the Elmwood Township Planning Commission to rewrite the new Elmwood Township Zoning Ordinance in such a way as to lay the township wide open for large scale residential development. Sometimes cajoling the commission, at other times simply dictating new language to the Township's planning consultant, Gallagher has made a number of major changes to the ordinance in the last two Planning Commission meetings, which will have long-term effects in the township. Ordinance changes include:

• Allowing densities as high as one unit per acre in site condominium developments (two and one half times the density of the the controversial Lincoln Meadows project) within the Agriculture/Open Space District.

• Specifying a new "administrative option" which will allow large landowners to develop their land at densities up to one unit per three acres with only minimal design requirements and little Township review.

• Removing the requirement, specified by the Townhip Master Plan, that developments with a density higher than one unit per 2 1/2 acres be connected to shared water or septic systems

The new ordinance as dictated by Gallagher will thus allow densities as high as 10 times those permitted under the current ordinance. Other key features in the current ordinance, such as the requirement that the essential character of the agricultural / open space district be preserved, have been entirely discarded.

The new ordinance is the polar opposite of the township's master plan, which was based on an extensive survey of all Township residents. The master plan invokes township government to: encourage development where public waste and sanitary sewer systems exist; to provide that new residential developments be logical extensions of existing neighborhoods; and to preserve the rural character of the Agricultural District. Considering the years and tens of thousands of dollars and public energy invested in creating the Township Master Plan, the new ordinance does little to address public concerns.

Noting that the draft ordinance as it stands contradicts various provisions of the master plan which it is by statute supposed to implement, Gallagher suggested at several junctures that the plan be amended, but ended by simply directing the Commission to ignore it. The ordinance now proceeds to a public hearing (May 21, Elmwood Township Hall, 7pm), and then to the Township Board of Trustees, where its passage is virtually certain without a public outcry.