Clinton County's
Eagle Township Megasite
One of five of the megasites the MEDC is selling to multinational investors as "shovel ready," the Eagle Township megasites spans 1,400 acres of prime agricultural. and residential land, including the Dave Morris agricultural endowment.
Update: Megasite stopped!
Eagle Township's case study for stopping industrial megasites through grassroots action
After nearly two years of effort by Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP) and $5.95M in taxpayer funding, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) finally announced in November 2024 that they giving up on Eagle Township’s semiconductor megasite, aka the MMIC.
“We have fully discontinued our efforts with the properties in Eagle Township that were part of the MMIC site assemblage” LEAP's CEO Keith Lambert told EDRA.
Here’s what Eagle Township did:
- Summer 2023 - Eagle Township residents successfully recall Supervisor Patti Schaefer, who signed an NDA about the MMIC with LEAP, and who was a staunch supporter of the project.
- Fall 2023 - Local agriculturalist Troy Stroud emerges as the clear citizen-supported candidate for Township Supervisor.
- November 2023 - Eagle Township residents elect new supervisor and three new board trustees
- December 2023 - Township board hires municipal law firm McKenna to begin the immediate development of a new Master Plan which protects the community’s agricultural land use
- Spring 2024 - Township board runs multiple resident stakeholder input sessions and surveys, collecting data on residents’ desires and goals for township land use
- May 22 - A new Master Plan is drafted and ready for community review
- September 19 - The new Master Plan is approved and adopted by the township board.
Key elements of the Master Plan:
- Limits industrial zoning to “light industrial” clearly and directly at the forefront of the Plan’s Land Use Goals: “Prevent large scale industrial/commercial growth that would threaten the agricultural/rural nature and limit to light industrial/small scale growth in specified areas as zoned, or designated, in the Future Land Use map.” (page 34)
- Lists the “continued protection of groundwater, soils, bodies of water, ecosystems, and agricultural systems” as a core goal of the Plan’s future land use (page 33).
- Specifies the protection of soils, water, and habitat under “Natural Resource Objectives and Policies” (page 35).
- Discourages the extension of public water, sewer, and road utilities (pages 36).
- Outlines detailed wind and solar energy policies which clearly discourage utility-scale wind and solar energy systems, while allowing for resident on-site wind and solar energy through proper permitting channels (page 37).
- Directly acknowledges PA 233 (re: local zoning for utility-scale wind/solar) and expresses the intention to adopt a “compatible” renewable energy ordinance to keep local control (page 38).
- Provides over 80 pages of detailed resident and public engagement surveys conducted to assist the formation of the Master Plan.
No renaissance zones and tax breaks:
Eagle Township’s new board and supervisor stated publicly that they would not be supporting any renaissance zones or large tax breaks for development projects.
Here’s what Eagle Township didn’t do:
- Become captured by special interests.
- Host political rallies.
- Spend six figures on lawsuits and attorney fees.
- Align their fight with partisan politics.
- Refuse to act out of fear of getting sued by LEAP or a developer.
Why, in LEAP and MEDC’s own words
“We continue to believe the site could have great potential given its proximity to infrastructure, workforce and other adjacent industrial uses,” said Otie McKinley, MEDC’s spokesperson. “We also recognize that this is not the right time to pursue additional development on the site.”
In a following statement, LEAP stated they’d begun the project with “a sense of urgency based on the State of Michigan’s need for sites of that magnitude to pursue important semiconductor and EV-related industry investment projects to reshore US manufacturing and technology jobs,” and that “Following our 6 months or so of confidential real estate assembly, we began sharing information publicly about our vision and learned a lot during the community engagement process that followed.”
However, LEAP observed that “As more and more input came in, the local municipality leaders and neighbor sentiment turned from initial unanimous support into significant opposition to new development on these specific properties for any type of industrial use.”
What “unanimous support” LEAP is referring to is unclear, but what is clear is this: it did not include Eagle Township’s local residents. The resident surveys in Eagle Township’s new Master Plan make this abundantly clear.
Michigan Manufacturing Innovation Campus (MMIC)
MEDC funding draws local economic developers and universities to profit together
The MMIC, which the Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP) and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) are attempting to sell to multinational corporations, is planned to be a multi-facility megasite spanning over 1,400 acres.
Michigan State University (MSU) and Lansing Community College are partners with LEAP on the MMIC, echoing the large MEDC funding Ferris State University in Big Rapids received in connection with the Gotion EV megasite.
