Trouble Trouble in the Wings The adoption of Elmwood's new zoning ordinance is urgent. The cause of that urgency is the township's current zoning ordinance. Elmwood Township faces a tremendous liability every day due to the conflicted, out-of-date, vague, and cranky ordinance we must rely on to guide development and growth. A prime example is the current fracas over Wolverine Electric's proposed M-72 and Bugai road super electric substation. Elmwood's current and ordinance had little to say about the siting of such intense non-residential uses. The new ordinance under consideration would have mandated a public review of that use—a definite step in the right direction. From a zoning map that openly fails to relate to the master plan's Future Land Use map, to a conflicted set of standards for development in the Ag district that has caused the township to be liable for more than a hundred thousand dollars in legal expenses in the last 7 or 8 years, examples abound in our current zoning code that should raise alarm bells. Thanks to our current zoning ordinance Elmwood faces major legal liability every day. We have been lucky so far. Our community has not been confronted by a belligerent and litigious developer that could saddle us with costly inappropriate development, or pursue the wildly costly type of legal challenge that can arise when a township tries to control bad development without the ordinances it takes to back them up. Settlement amounts in these kinds of cases often reach amounts high enough that all the insurance, all the fund balances, all the assets of the townships involved, have not been enough to pay the judgments. Taxes have been levied against each township taxpayer to pay these kinds of judgements in Michigan in the past. It's time we relied on something other than luck to protect us from this kind of exposure.