When Ludington was incorporated into a Michigan city 151 years ago the concept of zoning wasn't even in existence.  In a nation where property and civil rights were firmly established in our founding documents, letting local governments control what you did with your property just wasn't an issue in the first half of the existence of the USA.  

But then zoning laws started cropping up in several major cities starting in the early 1900s.  Early zoning regulations were in several cases motivated by racism and classism, particularly with regard to those mandating single-family housing.  With the Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of zoning ordinances in general in 1926, the last 100 years have saw cities embrace the concept of zoning and develop codes that implement what city leaders and leading citizens see as appropriate for their town.

Ludington has been no exception, with a rather complex zoning code developed over the last century and a somewhat active Planning and Zoning Department.  That code has been established organically, addressing problems that arise or are likely to pop up.  Like any organically created set of laws, there have been plenty of amendments and plenty of repeals to the pre-existing code to make it fit better as our community and lifestyle changes.  The end product of this code in 2024 may not be the prettiest, at parts it may even be self-contradictory, but the final outcome exhibits all of our struggles and compromises over the course of many decades. 

At the December 9th (Monday) meeting of the Ludington City Council they are preparing to throw that century of effort away in order to replace it with an entirely new code called the Ludington Unified Development Ordinance (LUDO).  See Draft LUDO (Sept. 2024) (225 pages) and the Final? LUDO (Nov 2024) (202 pages).  

What is the history of the LUDO?  Councilor John Terzano (pictured below), who settled in Ludington after his retirement, read about Holland adopting their own and reported on it favorably to the B&L Standing Committee back in Nov 2021.  With Terzano's support, the LUDO was put on a wish list that rose up through the Planning Commission under his push in 2022, and with his influence behind it.  On July 25, 2022, Terzano's peers on the council would unanimously pass a $54,000 contract with McKenna and Associates to create the LUDO.  It should be noticed that I spoke out about the expense and propriety at that time.

XLFD:  "The central planning associated with such countries is not much unlike the idea behind the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO).  The city is poised to spend $54,000 on big city consultants to develop an UDO for our area.  After the UDO is wrote and you pass it, we are poised to go from conventional zoning regulations to a form-based code.

A form-based code is a land development regulation that uses physical form (rather than separation of uses) as the organizing principle for the code. A form-based code is a regulation, not a mere guideline.  The UDO will supplant our existing zoning and planning, which mostly observes the property rights of individuals, and replace it with strict regulation   The UDO will certainly address development at all scales of design, from regional planning on down to the building signage., leading to full scale "Smart Growth", leading to that socialist Utopia they promise but never realize.

Why would your constituents want you to spend $54,000 in order to hire elite consultants with designs to take our remaining property rights from us?  Thanks for any answer."

The only answer was from then City manager Mitch Foster stressing that the LUDO would be benign, simplifying rules and offering more understandable rules.  The unanimous approval of this expense by the overbearing council was an even better unstated answer as to how they hoped the new rules would enhance their planning and zoning powers.  

Thus began a two year process where subcommittees of the Planning Commission would consult with McKenna, a Grand Rapids based consultant, whose LUDO architects may not even be familiar with our city and its people, nor even the history of our zoning code.  Such knowledge is not important with a form-based code, drafted using the outline of prior UDOs made for cities wholly unlike ours.  

This is why you may be hearing about the LUDO for the first time this fall when they introduced to the general public a draft of their finished product in September.  All those Zoning Subcommittee (of the Planning Commission) meetings on Zoom where city officials engaged with McKenna in those two years were effectively done away from the public's purview and settled before you were able to view it.  

It has had its critics.  Attorney Tracy Thompson has found fault with its hidden agenda against single-family housing and bias for the missing middle (duplexes, triplexes, quadruplexes).  This suggests that one of the goals of the LUDO is to allow the city to flex more of its power by getting rid of properties whose owners would care about their own property rights of their 'castle'.  

On similar lines, Realtor Bob Budrow has indicated that it would encourage developers to build structures that would have four units in order to maximize their profit.  Incoming Fifth Ward Councilor Mike Shaw has urged the council to send this back for further review and individualize the concepts to suit neighborhoods in Ludington better.  

This advice all seems to be well-founded.  Councilors have been wooed by consultants and the propaganda put out that the LUDO will make zoning so much simpler and understandable that they are willing to throw away a century's worth of work, much of it done out in the open at public meetings of the council and planning commission, that created our own individualized zoning code.  Should we give it all up because some consultants ignorant of our area's uniqueness tweak the same UDO template they provide to all of their clients, consultants hired because another retiree who moved to our area thought it would be a groovy idea to spend a lot of money to create a lot of new rules, some inapplicable due to the UDO's attempts at uniformity for all cities.

Our city council will enjoy the additional powers they are granted by the LUDO, Planning/Zoning Director Heather Tykoski is enamored by the fact that this will make the city better able to become 'Redevelopment Ready'.  This will qualify the city for more grants for developers, so that they can increase population density by building quadraplexes and bigger structures.  It is unlikely that they will ever drop this as a goal to shoot for, it will even be unlikely for them to follow Shaw's advice to have a better review of it by citizens.  

The simplicity of it all and other Utopian goals they have deluded themselves should not confuse you as to what will happen here.  Organic guidelines developed over decades will be replaced with strict rules to take away your property and civil rights and replace it with governmental power and control over your property and livelihood.  This is not a good outcome.