Zoning Ordinance

McKenna partnered with Dexter Township in Washtenaw County, Michigan, to prepare a consolidated Zoning Ordinance resulting from many years’ worth of updates and amendments prepared by the Township’s Planning Commission, Township Board of Trustees, and staff. Due to the drawn-out amendment process, the Township sought assistance with compiling edits, reviewing technical aspects of the regulations, modernizing the ordinance regarding recent legal decisions, and reformatting the entire document into an easy-to-use, aesthetically appealing one.

McKenna worked to review existing regulations to ensure standards were reasonable, easy to comprehend and enforce, and consistent. McKenna’s zoning experts suggested modifications to improve readability, ensure regulatory consistency, and increase efficiency in administering the ordinance while collaborating with Township staff to integrate fixes to “pain points” and recurring problems with the current ordinance. Concurrently, McKenna’s graphic design team prepared a new document layout for the Township that ensured the Ordinance was well-organized and easy to read; the document features a hierarchy of regulations, comprehensive tables, and hyperlinks to related sections of the Ordinance. All changes recommended by McKenna professionals and discussed with the Township Steering Committee were documented for future reference.

Dexter Township’s adopted Zoning Ordinance is an example of a collaborative effort to consolidate years of effort into an efficient, appealing, and intuitive set of regulations to guide land development.