Michigan
Zoning limits bills prompt cities and towns to fight Michigan lawmakers
Mayors and township supervisors across Metro Detroit are alarmed about state housing legislation that they said could result in much denser development that would tax local infrastructure, though advocates argued it would reduce the cost of housing.
The legislation, introduced in February, has pitted local officials against some state lawmakers who contend that Michigan needs to address local regulations that restrict the building of more affordable housing. The bills, now in a Michigan House committee, would allow for smaller lot sizes and smaller setbacks, paving the way for more affordable homes, said State Rep. Kristian Grant.
“What we know is that over the last 20 to 30 years, zoning regulations that may have been well-intended when they started have gone further and further and have really become a redlining tool to keep people out of communities,” said Grant, a Grand Rapids Democrat who is championing the bills.
But local government officials said the bills take a one-size-fits-all approach to zoning across the state and that local infrastructure, including sewer and water systems, can’t support potential increases in housing density. They countered that the bills do not ensure that the new housing will be sold or rented at affordable prices.
Multiple communities, including Bloomfield Township, Clinton Township, Romulus and Sterling Heights, have passed formal resolutions opposing the legislation. Dozens of officials from across Metro Detroit gathered at a February press conference, organized by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, to blast the legislation.
“There’s never been an issue in Lansing in the time that I’ve been working on legislative advocacy that has galvanized our membership and local leaders statewide in favor or against something so much ― in this case, against a bill package,” said Kevin Vettraino, SEMCOG’s director of planning.
The Michigan Municipal League, SEMCOG and the Michigan Townships Association have organized a letter of opposition that more than 2,000 officials across the state and over 100 residents have signed. The issue is about local control, they said.
“We are strongly of the opinion that we are closest to residents and that we should have a say,” Bloomfield Township Treasurer Michael Schostak said. “We have the ultimate say on our issues that impact the local community.”
But Grant argued that zoning is one of the issues that increases the cost of housing. Americans live differently than they did several generations ago, as more families have single parents and some married people don’t have kids, she said, necessitating more housing units.
Grant said her legislative package is not focused on “getting rid of zoning in any kind of way.”
“It focuses really closely on five zoning laws that are very directly correlated to housing,” she said. “It also does not remove local input.”
Not all local officials in Metro Detroit oppose the legislation. Ann Arbor officials support the proposals as addressing the unaffordability of housing by increasing the supply and thus lowering the price.
Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor said the legislation doesn’t eliminate local planning, but rather “ensures that there are minimum levels of housing opportunity everywhere.”
“This package provides a floor,” Taylor said. “It doesn’t provide a ceiling.”
Home builders explain why zoning rules are costly
Zoning rules often make it prohibitive for developers to build smaller starter homes, said Dawn Crandall, executive vice president for government relations at the Home Builders Association of Michigan.
“If they have, say, one-acre minimum lot sizes, … that increases the cost of a home just in the land,” she said.
Crandall said the costs of land and building materials, as well as lending issues, have made home development more expensive. Zoning law changes are “one piece of the puzzle” to increase the state’s housing stock, she said.
“This is just one way that we can look at maybe putting some guardrails and some stability across the state for builders who sometimes build in numerous communities,” Crandall said.
But SEMCOG’s Vettraino said the bills don’t ensure that newly constructed units are affordable. He pointed to a development under construction in Harper Woods that is targeting families earning 60-120% of the area median income. He said that this ensures that the units are “affordable currently and into the future.”
“There is no confidence that the end result of that bill package results in affordable housing, because it gives all the decision-making to the developers,” said Amy O’Leary, SEMCOG’s executive director.
Grant countered by noting that the current low supply of new housing is driving up costs. and. She pointed to Austin, Texas, where a Pew Charitable Trusts article said policy reforms starting in 2015 “aimed at encouraging the development of new housing, especially rentals,” resulted in rents decreasing as more homes were built.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said he hasn’t been able to pinpoint how the package helps reduce the cost of home construction.
The city is already conducting quick reviews of site plans — Dearborn’s site plan guide says reviews take about 20 days — and working on pre-approved housing designs for single-family homes and duplexes, he said. The moves are intended to speed up construction by vetting certain home designs in advance to ensure they comply with local zoning and building codes.
“We are doing all the right things, but the cost of construction is just high,” Hammoud said.
Romulus Mayor Robert McCraight said he’d rather see lawmakers give developers an incentive to build higher-density housing by subsidizing infrastructure costs, such as utilities and roads, that have to be paid before home construction can start. That can cost $100,000 per house, he said.
If legislators can find a way to provide that kind of incentive, McCraight said, “Now you’re talking.”
What the zoning bills say
House Bills 5529 and 5530, which are sponsored by Grant and state Rep. Jennifer Wortz, R-Quincy, respectively, would prohibit communities from establishing a minimum parcel size of more than 1,500 square feet for detached single-family residences served by public water and sewer, according to a SEMCOG summary of the bills.
Grant said land is expensive.
“If we require people to buy large amounts of it for one single-family home, not only does that take away from someone else who could have built on that land, but it prices people out,” she said.
House Bill 5583, sponsored by state Rep. Matt Longjohn, D-Portage, would ensure that the zoning in communities in or adjacent to a Metropolitan Statistical Area, such as Metro Detroit, doesn’t require setbacks larger than 15 feet at the front of a building or five feet at the side or rear. A setback is the space between where a property line starts and where a housing unit is built.
The setback changes would allow more land to be used for housing, Grant said.
Grant’s House Bill 5582 would restrict zoning ordinances from requiring more than one parking space per dwelling unit in a multifamily development. And House Bill 5584, sponsored by Rep. Joey Andrews, D-St. Joseph, would make duplexes “a permitted use” in any zoning district that allows single-family residences.
Developers would be able to submit a proposal for a duplex, but local governments could still set requirements for duplexes, including regarding the design of the building or its parking, Grant said.
“What the bill is essentially saying is that you cannot, off the bat, just make duplexes illegal to build in your community,” she said.
How the proposed legislation would increase housing density
SEMCOG’s Vettraino said the bills don’t specify how the setback sizes and minimum parcel sizes were determined. The legislation would allow 1,500-square-foot lots with homes that are 500 square feet in size and “minimal setbacks,” he said.
“What does this really look like?” Vettraino said. “When you do the math for a single acre, this would result in as many as 29 single-family units on a single acre.”
The legislation doesn’t talk about setting aside land for green space, utilities or infrastructure, but if 30% of the land were reserved for those elements, there would be 20 single-family units per acre, he said.
“This still is far more dense than anything that we currently have in the region,” Vettraino said, adding that Hamtramck is the densest city in Michigan at 18 housing units per acre, followed by Detroit at 12, Ypsilanti at nine and Center Line at eight.
The smallest lot sizes in Sterling Heights are 7,200 square feet, which are typically 60 feet by 120 feet, said City Planner Jake Parcell, which equates to just under six homes per acre.
Sterling Heights City Manager Mark Vanderpool said a few thousand housing units need to be built in the city in the coming years.
“Now, is it smarter to do it in the way we’ve been doing it, or is it better to have legislation that just mandates density anywhere in the community residential areas?” Vanderpool said.
The city manager pointed to the Lakeside City Center project, which will include “a couple thousand” housing units. The project will turn the Lakeside Mall property on M-59 into a mixed-use center, with restaurants, hotels, housing, park space and more.
Officials debate setback concerns
In Oakland County, which is home to hundreds of lakes, officials worried that reduced setbacks — meaning the space between where a property line starts and where a housing unit is built — could put developments too close to wetlands.
Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett said his community has had “major flooding” in recent years — something he said the proposed bills don’t take into consideration.
The Oakland County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution opposing the bills out of committee in March. Gwen Markham, a Democratic county commissioner from Novi, said the setback for wetlands in the county is currently 50 feet. One legislative proposal would allow up to a 25-foot setback from wetlands, inland lakes or streams, and high-water marks for the Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair, according to the SEMCOG summary.
“Wetland setbacks protect buildings, whether it’s homes or businesses or public buildings,” Markham said.
“The local officials don’t feel as though you can just tell us across the board, ‘You need to be able to do this.’”
Ann Arbor City Councilwoman Lisa Disch disagreed, arguing that Oakland County could create natural feature protections in its zoning code that would address bodies of water and coexist with the proposed rules.
Macomb officials worry that communities could be ‘upended’
Macomb Township Supervisor Frank Viviano said that when he and his wife were deciding where they wanted to raise their family, they chose an area where they thought they could “get value” and liked the surrounding community.
“Now, if these bills were to go through, the community that I invested to, and the community that literally hundreds of thousands of southeast Michigan residents invested into, could be upended, meaning that we could have a duplex next to us, five feet from our property line,” Viviano said.
Clinton Township Supervisor Paul Gieleghem said he and other township officials believe the proposed changes would reduce property values.
“Reducing the value of someone’s home is literally pulling money from them,” Gieleghem said, adding that a family’s single largest investment.
“We are for development and affordable housing options, but where the infrastructure exists to be able to support it,” Gieleghem said.
Kelly Karll, the manager of SEMCOG’s environment and infrastructure group, said municipal engineers are responsible for making sure roads, water, sewer and stormwater lines in an area can safely support what’s being built.
“So when the state overrides local control with one-size-fits-all-type mandates like this, it breaks that connection between development decisions and the capacity checks that engineers are required to make,” she said.
Karll said the bills would allow “major increases” in density in places where infrastructure was sized for a significantly lower level of use.
But Rep. Aragona said he and the other lawmakers are not trying to “overwhelm any type of system.” If they have to amend the legislation to ensure that infrastructure isn’t overwhelmed, they will, he said.
“We don’t want anybody’s basement flooding or any streets getting ruined because … there’s not enough impervious surface or what have you,” Aragona said.
Some opponents are backing another proposal, called the MI Home Program, which was introduced as House Bill 5660 by State Reps. Mark Tisdel, R-Rochester, and Samantha Steckloff, D-Farmington Hills.
Under the MI Home Program, the state would spend $160 million annually for five years to accelerate housing construction and rehabilitation and promote updates to local zoning regulations, a Michigan Municipal League document said. The homes built or rehabbed using the state money would be required to be sold to people earning within 120% of the area median income, SEMCOG’s O’Leary said.
“If they want to actually fix affordability, they need to put some funding behind it,” said Orion Township’s Barnett, who supports this bill.
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Lansing — Jocelyn Benson, the front runner for the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor, said she believes her work in eight years as secretary of state will help convince voters to promote her this fall.
On Sunday, during a convention in Detroit, Democrats will pick a new secretary of state nominee. And on Thursday, Benson’s campaign for governor submitted about 30,000 petition signatures to get her name on the Aug. 4 primary ballot.
Amid those key moments in the 2026 election cycle, Benson, a former law school dean, sat down Thursday afternoon for an interview with The Detroit News about her time as secretary of state.
“I think that’s what people are looking for: A government that saves them time, saves them money and makes their life easier,” Benson contended. “I’ve done that as secretary of state, and I’ll do that as governor.”
The following interview was edited for length and clarity.
Question: You just dropped off your signatures this weekend. The Democrats are going to be gathering to nominate a new person for secretary of state. I was just looking over your campaign promises from 2017, do you feel like you hit them?
Benson: I had two goals when I came into office: wait times down and voter turnout up. And we did both, and I’m really proud of that.
When I started, we did a strategic planning session every January, and during our first strategic planning session in 2019, we filled the whiteboard on every wall in the office. And in our most recent one, the final one, we had just sort of one, just one little to-do list item left, which was really gratifying. Because we have not just increased turnout, but we’ve transformed our elections, eliminated gerrymandering, implemented the state’s first-ever citizens redistricting commission, which was no easy task, and then also implemented a number of new election procedures and options, educated voters about them and took Michigan’s elections from being ranked 31st in the country to No. 2.
We also did that while reducing those wait times (in Secretary of State offices), transforming our customer service experience. … Wait times are consistently 20 minutes or less, which was my No. 1 campaign goal.
Q: What were some of the strategies you used to get the wait times down for people?
A: No. 1, we listened to our employees, and No. 2, we collected data about what wasn’t working. You can’t fix what you can’t measure. And No. 3, we actually went around the country and looked at what states that actually had low wait times were doing. There weren’t many, but there were a few. Indiana and Illinois, had some interesting things that they did, and we took best practices that were working in other states and replicated them here.
But that first piece was key, listening to our employees. Early on in the process, we brought everyone in, all the branch office directors. I was expecting a daylong retreat where we would be discussing ideas, and I sat down with the director of branch office services. He had a whole PowerPoint presentation that went through everything we needed to do, from filling 900 vacant positions that were just vacant and not filled, to creating internally this opportunity for people to schedule the visit ahead of time.
We didn’t pay someone else to build that. That was built by our employees.
Q: When you ran in 2018, one of the big things you were talking about was election security. Do you feel like you’ve achieved that: improving election security? And what do you think about more people probably having faith in the results of elections then than they do now?
A: I am really proud of the fact that in this era of misinformation, we were able to protect our elections and ensure they remained secure.
While withstanding this unprecedented scrutiny and an unprecedented level of frivolous lawsuits, sham legislative hearings and falsehoods spread about our elections in the eye of the storm, we not only met the moment, but we built a better election system through it. That’s evidenced by the fact that we now have choices on how to vote in our state, we’ve modernized how you can register to vote and have increased the registration numbers we have.
Q: If one of these current candidates for secretary of state came to you and said, “I believe that the election is secure and everything is fine, but obviously there’s a lot of voters who don’t. How do we improve that?” What would you say to them?
A: Transparency is our friend.
Q: Just continue to open the process up as much as possible?
A: Well, the facts are on our side. The process is secure. So one of the most important things we need to do first is just continue to give people the tools that they need to get their questions answered and work with folks across the aisle, like we worked with Sen. Ed McBroom in 2021 to invite them into the process as well as answer questions that they have, while also, of course, maintaining any necessary confidence or security about the information that we’re providing.
But the through line is just transparency.
Q: What do you say to some of your opponents who will say, “Yeah, you decreased wait times. But what about the campaign finance website?” It’s not functioning, as they would hope it would.
A: Well, it’s certainly better than what we’ve had in the past. I think it’s important to remember that when I first ran for office, one of the things I heard most on the trail was actually, when are you going to get rid of MERTS (the former campaign finance disclosure system)?
Q: But that’s from people who are on the back end of it?
A: Right. Yeah. So I didn’t want to leave office without taking on that behemoth, knowing that it wasn’t going to be a smooth process, but it’s a necessary one if we were actually going to have a more transparent system, which I would argue also is something that the next secretary of state really needs to lean into more: getting money out of politics. I’ll be an ally for that as governor.
But when it comes to MITN and that process, one, what it really underscores is that I’m not afraid to take on big behemoths that others, frankly, past secretaries of state, refused to do, because it was too hard. And it does invite criticism. Whenever you try to transform a massive system that’s broken, yes, there are going to be hiccups along the way.
Q: Do you think voters are interested in that message: “I’ve improved these systems. I’m in government. I’ve succeeded in government. I can make it work.” Or are they looking for someone to just change everything?
A: People see a broken system that needs fixing, and they know I have transformed and fixed a system that every single one of our residents has interacted with. The other day, I was picking up food for my son and husband, and walking out with bags of food, and this gentleman in a pickup truck pulled up next to me in the parking lot and said, “Excuse me, are you the secretary of state?”
I was like, “I am.” And he said, “You know, I’m not political or anything. But I just was driving down this road the other day and realized when I passed the secretary of state’s office that it’s been years since I’ve had to go in there. Thank you for everything you’ve done to make that possible for me.” And I said, “Yeah, now imagine if all of government worked that well.”
Q: Do you think all three of the Democratic candidates running for secretary of state would be a good secretary of state? I know you’re not endorsing.
A: I’m committed to working with whoever comes through the convention and making sure they’re prepared to build on what we’ve done and achieve even more success.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
Before-and-after images of homes on Black Lake near Onaway provide perspectives on how the community was affected by April flooding.
Snowmelt and rain have stressed dams and caused lakes to flood in northern Michigan.
The Cheboygan County Sheriff’s Office shared on social media photos and videos that the agency captured of Cheboygan County floods on Friday, April 17 from both the ground and air.
Deputies “observed a level of destruction that simply cannot be understood from ground level,” the sheriff’s office said in the post.
Google Maps images taken from two locations on Black Lake in 2024, compared with the Friday images, show how the floodwater has changed the landscape.
On North Black River Road and Taylor Road, the water has overflowed to North Black River Road.
In the 400 block of South Black River Road, water has also flooded homes and lakeside property.
“Black Lake, Black River, Cheboygan River, Burt Lake, Mullet Lake, the Sturgeon River − and nearly every waterway in the county have overflowed beyond their banks, swallowing docks, roads, yards, and in far too many cases, homes,” the sheriff’s office post said. “What should be familiar shorelines are now unrecognizable expanses of water.”
“Our hearts are with every family affected by this flooding,” Cheboygan County Sheriff Todd Ross said in the post. “We know many of you are facing significant damage to your homes and property, and the emotional toll that comes with it. Please know you are not alone. We are working around the clock with our partners to ensure safety, provide support, and begin the process of recovery. Stay strong, stay connected, and don’t hesitate to reach out for help, we will get through this together.”
Nearby, the UAW Black Lake Conference Center shared images on social media of floodwater threatening its Old Lodge.
The conference center is located at 2000 Maxon Road in Waverly Township.
The Cheboygan County Road Commission and the Cheboygan County Office of Emergency Management closed the bridge at Five Mile Point Road on Saturday, April 18 due to significant road washout in the area of South Black River Road and Red Bridge Road.
The sheriff’s office had encouraged residents in parts of the area to evacuate earlier in the week and said Saturday it had completed evacuation efforts on the west side of the lake.
TEXAS TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A 20-year-old Kalamazoo man is dead after crashing his vehicle into a tree Friday evening in Texas Township, according to Michigan State Police (MSP).
It happened on South 3rd Street and West PQ Avenue around 6:50 p.m., troopers said.
While he was driving in a no-passing zone, the Kalamazoo man swerved off the road to avoid an oncoming vehicle and subsequently crashed into the tree, according to MSP.
The 20-year-old died at the scene. A passenger was hurt, but police said their injuries were non-life threatening.
Troopers do not believe alcohol or drugs were a factor, and the two were reportedly wearing seatbelts.
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This incident remains under investigation by MSP.
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