Sumpter Township to host training for planning commissions

A two-hour, training session on planning and zoning procedures will be held at 7 p.m., Feb. 28, at the Sumpter Township Hall.
John Enos, principal at Carlisle-Wortman Associates of Ann Arbor, will teach about open meetings, how meetings are run, basic site plan reviews and other planning and zoning topics.
At the Feb. 14 meeting of the Sumpter Township Planning Commission, planning consultant Chris Atkin of Carlisle-Wortman said Sumpter will be inviting planning commission members in the surrounding communities to attend the training.
Sumpter Treasurer Ken Bednark said from the audience that he has a long relationship with Enos from them both teaching at the University of Michigan.
“He really knows his stuff and taught it at a college level,” Treasurer Bednark said.
In other business at the 18-minute meeting on Feb. 14, the planning commission:
• Set a public hearing on the updated Master Plan for 7 p.m., March 14, at the next commission meeting. Copies of the proposed Master Plan are available at township hall for review. Atkin, who has been working on the Master Plan for months, said it is 95% complete and he will mail color copies to commission members on Feb. 15. After the public hearing they can begin the 63-day process of review by sending the Master Plan out to surrounding communities and entities for comment;
• Unanimously approved sending to the township board for action a proposed amendment on accessory buildings and structures, which increases the size and heights for some buildings. This amendment was proposed to alleviate the many Board of Zoning Appeals requests for residents wanting to build larger pole barns than allowed by the zoning ordinance;
• Unanimously approved sending to the township board for action two proposed amendments to the zoning ordinance, one that defines yard waste and adds yard clippings to environmental debris. The other prohibits putting yard waste in drains and public and private rights-of-way. These amendments were written after a resident told the township board how dangerous for motorcyclists wet grass clippings were on roadways and how his friend had been decapitated in the Irish Hills after sliding into a sign.