A vision for Elmwood Township's rural AO-1 District was presented Tuesday night by the group Elmwood Citizens for Sensible Growth. The group was represented by Erik Saxon, who introduced a position paper entitled "Development density and development options for the Rural Low Density zoning district in Elmwood: The master plan, community agreement, and the formulation of public policy." You can read the paper here. (Full disclosure: the publisher and editor of the Leelanau Post are also members of ECSG.)

The paper advocates a set of development options for the township's extensive Agricultural Openspace District, which is coming under heavy pressure from local, downstate, and national development interests. The plan aims to minimize large-lot metes and bounds splits which lead to sprawl, instead advocating generous density incentives to encourage developers to cluster housing and preserve open space and agricultural lands. In addition, the paper endorses the Alternative Standard Land Divisions option in the current draft of the zoning ordinance which allows a farmer or other landowner to split off properties of any size for their children or to raise cash.

~ Steve