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Please take a few minutes to complete the activities found below on this page, which features several activities that were available for attendees at a July 30 workshop for Saginaw residents to offer their feedback on site standard regulations.

Each tab below contains corresponding questions related to its subject matter. You may take these activities at your leisure based on how important they are to you.

Activities

Parking

Signs

Outdoor Storage

Landscaping

Information

By allocating specific standards for off-street parking, this section of the ordinance seeks to minimize conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians to make Saginaw safer and more walkable while ensuring adequate accessibility for all modes of transportation, including personal vehicles. In addition, effective parking lot design results in greater compatibility with the surrounding area, enhanced stormwater management, improved land use efficiency, and safer traffic flow.

When updating the Zoning Ordinance, it is important to strike the right balance when allocating parking requirements, ensuring that adequate parking is provided to meet the needs of residents and businesses, while reducing the empty spaces that lie unused, contributing to environmental challenges and sprawling development patterns.

The High Cost of Free Parking

Vehicle parking is a key component of Saginaw’s development environment. Parking spaces allow businesses to accommodate their staff and customers, and residents need places to store the vehicles they use in their daily lives. In the downtown, public parking lots and on-street parking spaces serve multiple properties. Elsewhere in the City, parking is often site-specific and the ordinance sets forth minimum requirements for parking that must be provided for each land use.

Due to auto-dependency, parking spaces are a necessary component of most development in this region, but it should also be recognized that parking has negative impacts on the urban fabric of the City. Most parking, from single-family driveways to large lots for shopping centers, is empty for significant portions of the day. Substantial portions of land are allocated for this temporary storage of vehicles, an opportunity cost at the expense of taxable development or environmental conservation.

Beyond the opportunity costs, parking spaces have negative impacts on the surrounding environment. Parking lots are constructed with impervious materials that do not absorb stormwater, requiring stormwater management systems to mitigate flooding. In addition, the dark asphalt in parking lots absorbs heat from the sun, which is then radiated back into the atmosphere. These parking lots may be significantly hotter than other areas on hot days, and the release of accumulated heat overnight can keep a heavily paved area from properly cooling down after the sun sets. Beyond the effects of the pavement itself, the land occupied by parking takes up considerable space, pushing buildings further apart. This has the effect of reducing the compactness and walkability of urban areas in favor of a sprawling development pattern.

“If you don’t have a problem parking, you may have a parking problem.”

Signs are important ways for businesses and organizations in the community to identify who they are and share communications, but excessive signage can create visual clutter and obstructed sight lines, diminish the pedestrian experience, and outshine community assets and architecture.

Updates to the sign ordinance will require a careful balance between regulatory rigor and practicality, resulting in signs that complement Saginaw without hampering new business growth.

Content Neutrality

In 2015, in the case of Reed Vs. Gilbert, the United States Supreme Court issued a new ruling on signs that was inconsistent with many zoning ordinances throughout Michigan. The courts determined that zoning ordinances may not regulate the content of a sign, and that content-based restrictions are incompatible with the First Amendment protections to Freedom of Speech. Any regulations that allow more permissive signage for one land use over another are considered to be content-based regulations and are not allowed.

Time, place and manner

Although content neutrality limits the way that communities can oversee signs, regulations that address the time, place, and manner of signs are acceptable ways that communities can ensure compatibility with the surrounding built environment. Some of the sign restrictions that are acceptable include those that address the following:

Zoning District
Size
Height
Setbacks
Materials
Type
Illumination

Appropriate landscaping and urban forestry are important considerations for a community in ensuring the community is not only aesthetically/visually pleasing, but supportive of the natural environment as well, which leads to health and climate benefits.

Benefits of Trees

The USDA Forest Service and Arbor Day Foundation calculated external benefits of trees in 2017. The study found that “tree cover increased the value of private homes by more than $604 billion in 2017, based on the present value of annual services provided – the aesthetics, shading, and related energy cost savings over a 50-year lifespan for trees. Annually, $31.5 billion worth of services are provided to homeowners, and an additional $73 billion in benefits are delivered to society in the form of air pollution and stormwater runoff mitigation.”

Source: Economics of Urban Forestry, Tree City Bulletin, by James R. Fazio

Climate Adaptability

As the Earth warms because of climate change, some trees will be less likely to survive the changing climate but other trees more likely. Plant hardiness zones are moving north because of this, meaning our region will start to see more tree species from the south migrating northwards. A few climate adaptable trees urban foresters encourage are the following:

Kentucky Coffeetree
Blackgum
Yellowwood

General Comments on Site Standards

Site standards regulate the physical elements that make up a site, including the improvements required during the site plan review process. Lighting, accessory buildings, sidewalks/pathways, dumpster enclosures, etc. are examples of these types of zoning standards. Share any general comments about your preferences for site standards below. What is working and what needs improvement?