Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the Senate on March 2, 2005, to exempt residential property owners from soil erosion control permit requirements for gardening, landscaping, household maintenance, fencing, and preventative measures used to stabilize soils (see Senate substitute vote for details). Also, to require a local soil erosion control enforcing agency to issue a general permit for a residential project to a property owner for routine maintenance activities on a previously permitted seawall or similar structure, upon application and payment of a reasonable fee

The vote was 22 in favor, 15 opposed and 1 not voting

(Senate Roll Call 63 at Senate Journal 28)

Click here to view bill details.

Senator Patterson, under his constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the adoption of the amendments offered by Senator Brater to Senate Bill No.282. Senator Patterson's statement is as follows: I understand the spirit and intent of the previous speaker and her amendment. Unfortunately, I think this is one of the situations where the law would allow for local ordinances to tailor-make, for specific instances, the appropriate protections for our natural resources. Five hundred feet, under certain circumstances, might be very excessive and under other circumstances, it might be arbitrary and capriciously low. If we leave this to the locals, which was originally intended, we can come up with a tailor-made situation for each instance.