“Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” - Benjamin Franklin

With 3,288 miles of shoreline in the State of Michigan (second only to Alaska) and 11,000 inland lakes, Michigan planners working for local government regularly come into contact with two state agencies with jurisdiction over our water, the Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) and the Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).

It is the MDNR side that is the focus of our next Building Place Notebook case summary, posted below courtesy of Kurt Schindler at MSU-Extension.

This is a cautionary tale about why it is better for state agencies and other entities considering projects over which local  authority is in question (such as new public school construction) to take the extra time to work collaboratively with local governments on projects in their jurisdiction.

What attracted The Zoning Guru’s attention to this case was the fishy smell wafting off of a state agency’s attempt to preempt local regulations…

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