Michigan § 399.214 - Local units; establishing, modifying, or eliminating historic districts; study committee; considerations; review of applications within proposed historic district; emergency moratorium.

A local unit may at any time establish by ordinance additional historic districts, including proposed districts previously considered and rejected, may modify boundaries of an existing historic district, or may eliminate an existing historic district. Before establishing, modifying, or eliminating a historic district, a historic district study committee appointed by the legislative body of the local unit shall, except as provided in subsection (2), comply with the procedures set forth in section 3 and shall consider any previously written committee reports pertinent to the proposed action. To conduct these activities, local units may retain the initial committee, establish a standing committee, or establish a committee to consider only specific proposed districts and then be dissolved.

If considering elimination of a historic district, a committee shall follow the procedures set forth in section 3 for issuing a preliminary report, holding a public hearing, and issuing a final report but with the intent of showing 1 or more of the following:

The historic district has lost those physical characteristics that enabled establishment of the district.

The historic district was not significant in the way previously defined.

The historic district was established pursuant to defective procedures.

Upon receipt of substantial evidence showing the presence of historic, architectural, archaeological, engineering, or cultural significance of a proposed historic district, the legislative body of a local unit may, at its discretion, adopt a resolution requiring that all applications for permits within the proposed historic district be referred to the commission as prescribed in sections 5 and 9. The commission shall review permit applications with the same powers that would apply if the proposed historic district was an established historic district. The review may continue in the proposed historic district for not more than 1 year, or until such time as the local unit approves or rejects the establishment of the historic district by ordinance, whichever occurs first.

If the legislative body of a local unit determines that pending work will cause irreparable harm to resources located within an established historic district or a proposed historic district, the legislative body may by resolution declare an emergency moratorium of all such work for a period not to exceed 6 months. The legislative body may extend the emergency moratorium for an additional period not to exceed 6 months upon finding that the threat of irreparable harm to resources is still present. Any pending permit application concerning a resource subject to an emergency moratorium may be summarily denied.