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The Planning Commission may adopt a plan as a whole by a single resolution or may by successive resolutions adopt successive parts of the plan, said parts corresponding with major geographic sections or divisions of the municipality or with functional subdivisions of the subject matter of the plan, and may adopt any amendment or extension thereof or addition thereto. Before the adoption of the plan or any such part, amendment, extension or addition the Planning Commission shall hold at least one public hearing thereon, notice of the time and place of which shall be given by one publication in a newspaper of general circulation in the City and in the official gazette, if any, of the City. The adoption of the plan or of any such part or amendment or extension or addition shall be by resolution of the Planning Commission carried by the affirmative votes of not less than six members of the Planning Commission. The resolution shall refer expressly to the maps and descriptive and other matter intended by the Planning Commission to form the whole or part of the plan, and the action taken shall be recorded on the map and plan and descriptive matter by the identifying signature of the Chairman and the Secretary of the Planning Commission. An attested copy of the plan or part thereof shall be certified to the City Council and to the County Register of Deeds.
(Ord. 277, passed 2-14-1939)
Whenever the Planning Commission shall have adopted the Master Plan of the municipality or of one or more major sections or districts thereof no street, square, park or other public right-of-way, ground, or open space, or public building or structure, shall be constructed or authorized in the City or in such planned section and district until the location, character and extent thereof shall have been submitted to and approved by the Planning Commission; provided, that in case of disapproval the Planning Commission shall communicate its reasons to the City Council, which shall have the power to overrule the disapproval by a recorded vote of not less than two-thirds of its entire membership; provided further, that if the public street, space, building, structure or utility be one the authorization or financing of which does not fall within the province of the City Council, then the submission to the Planning Commission shall be by the board having such jurisdiction and the Planning Commission’s disapproval may be overruled by said board by a vote of not less than two-thirds of its membership. The failure of the Planning Commission to act within 60 days from and after the date of official submission to the Planning Commission shall be deemed approval; provided further, that wherever in regard to provisions herein before included or hereinafter referred to, wherein the authorization or financing of the public street, ground, space, building, structure or utility comes within the province of the City Council, the City Council shall have power to overrule the recommendation of the Planning Commission by a vote of not less than two-thirds of its entire membership.
(Ord. 277, passed 2-14-1939)
The Planning Commission shall have the power to promote public interest in and understanding of the plan and to that end may publish and distribute copies of the plan or of any report and may employ such other means of publicity and education as it may determine. Members of the Planning Commission, when duly authorized by the Planning Commission, may attend City planning conferences or meetings of City planning institutes or hearings upon pending City planning legislation; and the Planning Commission may, by resolution spread upon its minutes, pay the reasonable traveling expenses incident to such attendance. (The Planning Commission may from time to time recommend to the appropriate public officials programs for public structures and improvements and for the financing thereof.) It shall be part of its duties to consult and advise with public officials and agencies, public utility companies, civic, educational, professional, and other organizations, and with citizens, with relation to the protecting or carrying out the plan. The Planning Commission shall have the right to accept and use gifts for the exercise of its functions. All public officials shall, upon request, furnish to the Planning Commission, within a reasonable time, such available information as it may require for its work. The Planning Commission, its members, officers and employees, in the performance of their functions, may enter upon any land and make examinations and surveys and place and maintain necessary monuments, and marks thereon. In general, the Planning Commission shall have such other powers as are reasonably necessary for and incidental to the promotion of municipal planning, in accordance with the Charter, and ordinances of the City of Flint.
(Ord. 277, passed 2-14-1939)
The Planning Commission shall succeed to all powers heretofore granted by law or ordinance to the Zoning Board of Appeal of the City of Flint, and from and after the organization of the Planning Commission all powers and records of the Zoning Board of Appeals shall be transferred to the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission in the exercise of its zoning powers shall endeavor to preserve the existing rights of owners in residential, business and industrial properties. Nothing contained in this section or in this ordinance shall be construed to restrict or abrogate the power of the City Commission to continue to enact zoning ordinances in the manner provided by law.
(Ord. 277, passed 2-14-1939)
Whenever the Planning Commission shall have adopted that sort of a Master Plan, or part thereof, relating to the major street system of the territory within its subdivision jurisdiction, and shall have filed a certified copy of such plan in the office of the County Register of Deeds of the county in which such territory is located then no plat of a subdivision of land within such territory shall be filed or recorded until it shall have been approved by such Planning Commission and such approval entered in writing on the plat by the Chairman and Secretary of the Planning Commission.
(Ord. 277, passed 2-14-1939)
The following standards of design shall be applicable to all plats. These provisions shall constitute a subdivision control ordinance for the purposes of Section 186 of Public Act 288 of the Acts of 1967, the Subdivision Control Act.
(a) Conformity to City Plan. The subdivision shall be in harmony with the Master Plan and the Official Map of the City.
(b) Relation to Adjoining Street System.
(1) In the new subdivision, provision shall be made for the continuation of the principal existing streets in adjoining subdivisions, or their proper projection when adjoining property is not subdivided. The Commission may, in addition, require the continuation of such minor streets as are necessary for the extension of public improvements and for access to adjoining properties.
(2) Insofar as is practicable, acute angles between streets at their intersections shall be avoided.
(3) Where in the opinion of the Commission, topographical conditions make such continuance or conformity impracticable or undesirable, or in cases where the Commission itself adopts a plan or plat of a neighborhood or area of which the subdivision is a part and this plan or plat provides coordination with the street system of the City different from that of said continuations or projections of existing streets and the subdivider’s plat conforms to such neighborhood or area plat or plan of the Commission, the Commission may approve the subdivider’s plat.
(4) Where the plat submitted covers only a part of the subdivider’s tract, a sketch of the prospective future street system of the unsubmitted part shall be furnished and the street system of the part submitted shall be considered in the light of adjustments and connections with the street system of the part not submitted.
(5) Where a tract is subdivided into lots of an acre or more, the Commission may require an arrangement of lots and streets such as to permit a later resubdivision in conformity with the street requirements specified in the regulations.
(c) Access. There shall be no reserve strips controlling access to streets, except where the control of the strips is definitely placed in the City under conditions approved by the Commission. The subdividing of the land shall be such as to provide each lot, by means of either a public street or recorded way of permanent easement, with satisfactory access to an existing public highway or to a thoroughfare as shown on the Official Map or Master Plan.
(d) Street Widths.
(1) The width for streets shall conform to widths designated on the Traffic Plan or Official Map. The minimum width for minor streets shall be sixty (60) feet. The minimum width for alleys shall be twenty (20) feet. In cases where the topography or other physical conditions make a street of the required minimum width impracticable, the Commission may modify the requirements.
(2) Streets designed to have one end permanently closed (cul-de-sac) shall have a minimum width of forty (40) feet and shall be of such width at the closed end as will permit a turning radius of not less than forty (40) feet. Such streets shall not extend beyond the nearest intersection with another street for more than nine hundred (900) feet unless otherwise approved by the Commission for particular and appropriate reasons.
(3) Whenever necessary to permit the construction of curbs having a minimum radius of twenty-five (25) feet at street corners without restricting the sidewalk to less than normal width, the street line of such street corners shall be rounded or otherwise set back sufficiently to permit such construction. Normally the radius on the street line shall be not less than ten (10) feet. Larger radii may be required by the Commission when, in its opinion, the design is advisable.
(e) Easements.
(1) Except where alleys of not less than twenty (20) feet are provided for the purpose, the Commission may require easements, not less than four (4) feet in width, on each side of all rear lot lines, and on side lot lines where necessary or, in the opinion of the Commission, advisable, for poles, wires, conduits, storm and sanitary sewers, gas, water and heat mains or other utility lines. Easements of the same or greater width may be required along the lines of or across lots where necessary for the extension of the existing or planned utilities.
(2) If in the opinion of the Commission the most suitable and reasonable locations for any of the utilities, such as sewers, storm drains, water and gas pipes and electric pole lines and conduits, which are likely to be required within the subdivision, either for the service thereof or for service of areas in the surrounding territory, do not lie wholly within the streets, including alleys if any, shown upon the plat, the Commission may require, insofar as reasonable, provision to be made for the location of such utilities on routes elsewhere than within said streets, either by the dedication of public easements for the same as part of the plat or by the filing of supplementary instruments which will adequately protect the public interest in the proper location of the utilities.
(f) Blocks.
(1) Intersecting streets shall be so laid out that blocks between street lines shall be not more than thirteen hundred twenty (1,320) feet in length; except, that where, in the opinion of the Commission, extraordinary conditions unquestionably justify a departure from this maximum. In blocks over six hundred (600) feet in length, the Commission may require, at or near the middle of the block a public walk connecting adjacent streets. Such walk shall be six (6) feet in width and shall be intended for the use of pedestrians only.
(2) The width of blocks shall preferably be such as to allow one tier of lots abutting upon each adjacent street.
(g) Lots.
(1) In all quadrangular lots, and so far as practicable all other lots, the side lines shall be at right angles to straight street lines and radial to curved street lines.
(2) Unless otherwise approved by the Commission for particular and appropriate reasons, no interior lot designated for residence purposes shall be less than fifty (50) feet in width nor less than five thousand (5,000) square feet in an area, and no corner lot designated for residence purposes shall be less than sixty (60) feet in width nor less than six thousand (6,000) square feet in area.
(3) Lots with frontage on two parallel streets when less than two hundred (200) feet in depth will not be permitted unless, in the opinion of the Commission, conditions are deemed such as to render this requirement undesirable.
(h) Building Lines. Lots, in subdivisions outside the City, located within the area in which the Commission has jurisdiction and not in any area in which zoning laws with setback provisions are in full force and effect, shall show building lines in conformity to the zoning requirements for adjacent land within the City or in keeping with proper zoning principles.
(i) Neighborhood Unit. These regulations concerning minor and local streets, dead-end streets, block lengths and widths, and the size of lots, may be modified by the Commission in the case of a plat for a large tract of land which provides a community plan with a building development plan and recreational or other community spaces adequate, in the opinion of the Commission, for the circulation, recreational, light and air needs of the tract when fully developed and populated and which provides for such legal restrictions or other legal status as will assure the carrying out of the plan in its entirety.
(j) Public Open Spaces. Where a small park or other neighborhood recreational open space shown on an official map or on a plan made and adopted by the Commission is located in whole or in part in the applicant’s subdivision, or in the vicinity of the applicant’s subdivision, the Commission may require the dedication or reservation for park, playground or other recreational purposes, in those cases in which the Commission deems the requirements to be reasonable.
(Ord. 277, passed 2-14-1939; Ord. 2064, passed 7-1-1968; Ord. 3638, passed 4-11-2005)
Statutory reference:
Land Division Act, see MCLA § 560.186
The Planning Commission shall disapprove a plat within sixty days after the submission thereof to it; otherwise such plat shall be deemed to have been approved and a certificate to that effect shall be issued by the Planning Commission on demand; provided, however; that the applicant for the Commission’s approval may waive this requirement and consent to an extension of the period. The ground of disapproval of any plat shall be stated upon the records of the Commission. Any plat submitted to the Commission shall contain the name and address of any person to whom notice of a hearing shall be sent, and no plat shall be acted on by the Commission without affording a hearing thereon. Notice shall be sent to the said address by registered mail of the time and place of such hearing not less than five days before the date fixed therefor. Similar notice shall be mailed to the owners of land immediately adjoining the platted land, as their names appear upon the plats in the official records of the City of Flint and the County of Genesee and their addresses appear in the directory of the City or on the tax records of the City or County. Every plat approved by the Planning Commission shall, by virtue of such approval, be deemed to be an amendment of or an addition to or a detail of the municipal plan and a part thereof. Approval of a plat shall not be deemed to constitute or effect an acceptance by the public of any street or other open space shown upon the plat. The Planning Commission may, from time to time, recommend to the City Council amendments of the zoning ordinance or map or additions thereto to conform to the Planning Commission’s recommendations for the zoning regulation of the territory comprised within approved subdivisions. The Planning Commission shall have the power to agree with the applicant upon use, height, area or bulk requirements or restrictions governing buildings and premises within the subdivision; provided, such requirements or restrictions do not authorize the violation of the then then effective zoning ordinance of the City. Such requirements or restrictions shall be stated upon the plat prior to the approval and recording thereof and shall have the same force of law and be enforceable in the same manner and with the same sanctions and penalties and subject to the same power of amendment or repeal as though set out as a part of the zoning ordinance or map of the City. Provided that such requirements, restrictions or regulations do not conflict with the provisions of the then effective zoning ordinance or map.
(Ord. 277, passed 2-14-1939)
ARTICLE VIII. DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
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