December 15, 1999

Township takes action against sprawl

Whitewater develops new design model under new urbanism plan

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
       When Joe Anderson's phone rings these days, he never knows where the call might be coming from - a small town in Wisconsin, Washington, D.C., Toronto, Boston or Seattle.
      As the chair of the planning commission in Whitewater Township, Anderson is leading the charge in his community to stop urban sprawl from spreading into this pastoral township before it begins. And people around the country want to know more about it.
      During the past five years since being appointed to the planning commission, Anderson has been a man with a mission: find out why sprawl happens and determine ways to prevent it in his community. With an attractive, mostly undeveloped township just 10 miles from one of the largest-growing areas in the country, Anderson began to feel that encroaching sprawl was inevitable, unless the township did something about it.
      With an informal motto of 'Nobody puts a strip mall on a calendar,' the insurance salesman and former history teacher has thrown himself wholeheartedly into the process. He paid his way to countless training seminars, personally called all the experts in the field and combed through zoning codes from communities around the country to determine the source of sprawl.
      "I discovered that zoning ordinances written since World War II were a genetic code for sprawl," said Anderson, a native of Traverse City who has lived in Williamsburg since 1970. "The commission realized that there are five principles in this recipe for sprawl: free and rapid flow of traffic, parking, low-density building, separation of uses, and staggered and rotated buildings. We found this again and again, in 99 percent of the zoning ordinances in the country's 35,000 municipalities."
      Anderson, members of his planning commission and the elected township officials note that they are not against growth and development per se, they are just going to make sure that any construction in their township is done to their specifications. Strip malls and giant subdivisions can go elsewhere; development in Whitewater Township and the village district of Williamsburg will be according to a specific design model known as new urbanism.
      In the past three years, they have taken three steps to ensure this. First, they established Williamsburg as a village district, rezoning it to create a clearly defined town center that encourages traditionally designed buildings and discourages building for traffic flow and parking. This unusual approach harks back to pre-World War II zoning days when most construction was around a village center concept, in the days before the car was king.
      Then Anderson and township officials rewrote the township master plan to clearly state their vision for the area. The last step is to rewrite the zoning ordinance, which they hope to have completed by early next year. They even hired one of the country's top legal consultants for small town planning to make sure their zoning ordinance is simple, legal and workable - and will do what they want.
      "Most places wait until a place is built up and then put some zoning in place but we decided to do the zoning first so we would have a say in what goes up," said Anderson, noting that it would be illegal to build downtown Traverse City, Elk Rapids or Suttons Bay today.
      "We've also taken it one step farther by going beyond a master plan, which is just a policy statement with goals and nice dreams. But most communities don't go to the next step to rewrite the zoning ordinance to put master plan into law," he said.
      This proactive instead of a reactive approach is getting planners and township officials around the state and country to sit up and take notice. This year alone, Anderson was awarded the President's Award by the Michigan Society of Planning Organizations and the Frank Purvis Stewardship Award by the Grand Traverse County Planning Commission. He has traveled to Lansing to give a speech to a statewide historical society and fielded numerous requests for help from around the country.
      "The visionary leadership that Joe has provided is the key," said Roger Williams, director planning for Grand Traverse County. "Rarely are there citizens who will do so much and Joe has gone way beyond. And the approach they have used is to simplify their plan to make it easy for citizens to use."
      Anderson also thoroughly acknowledges the support of the township board and the other members of the planning commission, who have worked tirelessly with him to preserve their township's special character.
      "None would get done without the support of township board," said Anderson. "They've had the courage to step to the window and do it; they are the elected officials and they approve everything and answer directly to the people."