Smart growth gets a jump start
The “Growing Smart Workshop” being held today in Monroe was billed by county board Chairman Bill Sisk as the first step - sort of a jump start - toward improving joint planning among the various government entities in the county.
The goal was to raise our level of consciousness about the benefits of smart growth instead of the kind of urban sprawl we’ve been seeing for the past 15 years.
The hope was that many township, village and city officials - supervisors, board members, planning commission members - from throughout the county would attend, as well as developers and interested citizens.
Some were there this morning. Unfortunately, many were not. It’s not too late to attend tonight’s session, though. It’s free and open to the public from 6 to 9 p.m. in the IMH Motherhouse.
The Motherhouse isn’t hard to find - just turn into the main IMH entrance off Elm Street, park where it says visitor parking, and come in the front door. Signs will direct you to the meeting.
The five speakers each covered important areas of smart growth. Much of the talk was about water - the need to take care of one of our most precious resources, and how smart growth policies will help.
Larry Rutledge, the LaSalle Township supervisor and president of the Michigan Township Association, gave a short talk, then introduced the main speaker, Paul Goldsmith, an architect who is a leading proponent of “green” building.
As he neared the end of his talk, Goldsmith turned to Rutledge and said:
“The next time a subdivision goes in, you should be ready to say to the developer, we want it to be green,” referring to following smart growth policies that encourage things like energy conservation, a healthy inside environment and little or no water runoff.
Goldsmith added:
“The relationship between cities, townships and developers is going to have to make a paradigm shift.”
That’s what the smart growth workshop was all about - getting city, village and township officials and developers together to begin the conversation about how to make Monroe County a better place to live - for many years into the future.
If we don’t, the Monroe County we’ve come to love won’t be around for our children.
Rob Peven, a county planner, noted during his presentation that 17,000 acres of farmland were lost in Monroe County between 1990 and 2000, while 10,000 acres of subdivisions were added. During that time the population increased by 10,000.
That’s an acre of land lost for every person added. Not a very good ratio.
“This is not a sustainable land-use practice,” Mr. Peven noted. “We’re going to run out of land very quickily if we keep this up.”