A proposal that started its legislative life as the Aerotropolis program to create a tax free renaissance zone to encourage logistics hub development in areas surrounding Wayne County Metropolitan Airport has evolved over the past year into the Next Generation Development program to support possible projects in five areas statewide and the addition of another ten floating renaissance zones.

The legislative package would allow creation of up to five zones through inter-local agreements around multi-modal transportation areas (which could include airports, sea ports, train, highway, or other systems). Within each Next Michigan district there could be 12 geographic areas designated for renaissance zone development. The Michigan Economic Development Corporation still has to approve each individual zone.

In addition, the 10 floating renaissance zones include 3 that have to be designated in rural areas of the state.

Legislators expressed concern about creating the large areas available for tax abatement projects because supporters of the plans said there are no projects or entities specifically waiting for the development so that they can locate in Michigan. The supporters argued that making these resources available, which exist is other neighboring states, would aid their recruiting efforts in attracting logistics based companies and just-in-time inventory distribution centers to the state.