Development Plan Earns SEMCOG Award

CHELSEA, MI-A plan to organize growth on a large level recently won the first-place award for joint public services by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. The Chelsea Area Planning Team was formed by a group of community leaders concerned about growth pressures in and around the village of Chelsea, nationally known as the home of actor Jeff Daniel’s Purple Rose Theater.

The team includes representatives from the Washtenaw County planning department, the chamber of commerce, the school district and surrounding townships.

Leaders determined the only way to address community issues of growth management, roads, public utilities, manufactured housing and more was to create a regional land use plan.

The plan took two years, and serves as a basis for coordinating individual community master plans. It’s not designed to usurp local control of land use, the team said, but instead provides basis for local master plans, and where zoning and land use decisions are made.