HOUGHTON — After a public hearing Tuesday night, the Adams Township Planning Commission reconvened and voted to send a draft zoning ordinance to the township board for approval.

The township began pursuing zoning in response to Circle Power’s proposed 12-turbine Scotia Wind project, which would now fall entirely within the township. The project meets with the requirements under the township’s current police powers ordinance. Adams Township passed a six-month moratorium on granting permits for commercial wind and solar projects in August.

The hearing was the second on the ordinance, following the sole required hearing in January.

A draft of the zoning plan is available at upadamstownship.com.

Planning Commission Chairperson Martha Dugdale said the ordinance provides more local control over land use, which would be an important guard against developers, state and federal government and others trying to control local decision-making.

“Local control over land use will be developed and monitored by local residents and business owners who raise their families, go to school and church, work and recreate here, not outside interests who don’t live here and don’t appreciate and love the many great attributes of our township like we do…” she said. “The Planning Commission has made it clear in our meetings that we have zero interest in changing the way of life of residents and business owners. We just want to protect it.”

The ordinance lays out uses for five districts in the township: agriculture and forest; recreation, rural residential, residential and commercial. Land not marked with a district in the zoning map will fall under the farm and forest district.

Township attorney Kevin Mackey said the plan just codified the divisions laid out in the county’s master plan. The plan, last adopted in 2018, includes a color-coded map describing possible future uses based on existing land use in the county. The map is “not intended to be restrictive or proscriptive,” but intended to help assist future planning by governmental units within the county, the master plan said.

Mackey said the seven-page zoning plan was meant to be less restrictive than others in the county. He cited Houghton’s restrictions on what trees can be planted on properties as an example of onerous regulations.

“Nobody I’ve talked to on this township board, or any people, want anything like that, and I don’t blame them,” he said. “‘The government that governs the least governs the best,’ is the old saying, I believe.”

Planning Commission members and residents who spoke at the meeting criticized an advertisement that ran in the Daily Mining Gazette ahead of the meeting urging residents to speak out against the ordinance. The ad states under the new ordinance, the township would have “no place” for a host of uses, including offices, motels, non-profits, and beauty salons.

The draft ordinance posted on the township’s website does not list those as permitted uses within any zoning districts. For unspecified uses, the zoning administrator will have the first responsibility for determining whether a use is permitted. If they cannot decide, it falls to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

The zoning administrator and Zoning Board of Appeals are not specified in the ordinance. The Planning Commission is listed as having the power to approve site plans, which are a prerequisite for approving conditional uses.

The Michigan Planning Enabling Act gives planning commissions the power to act as zoning boards in some circumstances.

The ad did not list a person or organization. Gazette Advertising Director Yvonne Robillard said the ad had been purchased by an advertising agency. Robillard said the agency had not responded to an email inquiry about the person or group who commissioned the ad by the close of business Wednesday.

Circle Power Renewables Vice President Chris Moore said at Tuesday’s meeting the company was not behind it.

Asked about the business types mentioned in the ad, Dugdale said any existing businesses would be grandfathered in. As for ruling on new buildings, she said applicants would be able to ask for a variance.

“We’re not trying to restrict anybody’s business in the township, we just want to have some control over siting,” Dugdale said. If a business is not listed as a permitted use but fits into the general character of the area, “we would be amenable to that,” she said.

Most speakers during the 20-minute meeting supported the zoning ordinance.

“I do not want to see our area strongly zoned, but the loose minimal zoning that you have introduced is necessary to protect our community,” said Jen Sleeman, a member of Guardians of the Keweenaw Ridge, the citizen group formed to oppose the wind turbine project.

Township resident Barbara LaFex Lewis formerly sat on the county planning commission, which approves the county master plan. She stressed that the plan had been concerned with documenting land use, but did not delve into zoning.

In a statement after the meeting, Circle Power Renewables Vice President Chris Moore criticized the speed of the township’s process in creating a structure for zoning, and said the township is “running roughshod over the property rights of every owner in the township.”

“The Adams Township Board has called this rushed zoning process ‘zoning light,’ but fails to acknowledge that it would impact not just Scotia Wind, but every property and land use in the township,” he said. “More importantly, the proposed ordinance lacks legally required provisions that protect property owners from overreaching government regulations. If approved, there would be no limits on the township’s zoning authority.”

In a follow-up statement, Circle Power specified the provisions it found lacking in the draft. It does not spell out who administers or enforces the act, or how the ordinance can be enforced. It also does not spell out the process for seeking variances, rezoning or amendments to the ordinance, Circle Power said.

“The only apparent purpose of the township’s current draft is to limit commercial wind projects and other power-generating uses to the commercial zoning district,” Circle Power said, in an excerpt from a letter that was sent to the township board. “There appears to have been almost no consideration of the countless other impacts that a new zoning regime would have on other properties and their uses, or the claims that their owners may have against the township.”

The township board will meet at 6 p.m. Monday.