Kalamazoo Township’s supervisor asked the board to consider studying incorporation as an independent city, citing annexation interest from two neighboring cities.
Supervisor David Combs raised the issue during his board report at Monday’s meeting, following up on a topic first discussed at the board’s work session two weeks earlier. Combs said he had been approached separately by city commissioners from both the City of Kalamazoo and the City of Parchment, each expressing interest in potentially annexing pieces of the township.
Combs gave the board some history: Kalamazoo Charter Township became a charter township specifically to stop annexation, after the City of Kalamazoo annexed pieces of the township through the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. That shift is largely how the township’s current borders came to be. However, Combs said he’s since learned of an exception in Michigan’s Charter Townships Act that allows annexation of a charter township’s non-contiguous parcels — the township has four such pieces — or annexation intended to “straighten borders.” He said the township’s legal counsel has flagged real risk under that exception.
Combs was direct about the board’s position: the township has no interest in allowing any of its land to be annexed by either neighboring city. He floated one possible response — incorporating as an independent city, rather than becoming part of Kalamazoo or Parchment — but stressed that no decision has been made and that the idea is “many, many steps removed” from anything concrete. Any path to incorporation would ultimately require voter approval.
For now, Combs said what’s being discussed is authorization to research the question further and pursue a feasibility study to determine whether incorporation makes sense, what alternative paths might exist, and where the township’s actual vulnerabilities lie. The board did not take a formal vote on the mattery; Combs described it as an update on discussions that will continue at future meetings and at the board’s retreat in January or February.
What’s next: Combs encouraged residents interested in the issue to attend upcoming township meetings, saying the conversation “will recur.”
