The House Local Government committee took testimony this week on HB 4024 (Rep. Heise, R – Plymouth).  This would lock borders of charter townships of 20,000 or less by not allowing annexations.  This piece of legislation has been introduced for the past few sessions.  It stems from an annexation issue between Northville Twp and the city of Livonia (although the city of Livonia didn’t play an active role in the annexation).  The annexation was ultimately turned down by the voters but the goal of the sponsor is to prevent this type of “hostile annexation” to happen again between a more urbanized township and a city.  We testified in opposition to this as did the Michigan Association of Realtors.  The Michigan Association of Home Builders is opposed as well.  There will be workgroups on this starting next week and continuing through the summer months.

Nikki Brown is a legislative associate for the League handling economic development, land use, and municipal services issues.  She can be reached at nbrown@mml.org or 517-908-0305.