Mary Aitken Reilly, MS, AICP
Manistee County Extension Office
Government and Community Vitality Educator
Telephone: 231-889-4277x1
Area of Expertise:
Mary Reilly, AICP, is a Government and Public Policy Educator with Michigan State University Extension. Mary is based Manistee County and provides training in northwest lower Michigan and statewide. With over 20 years of planning and zoning experience, she knows firsthand the many difficult issues that Planning Commissioners, Zoning Board of Appeals members, and elected officials wrestle with on a monthly basis. Her interests are zoning administration, right to farm act, master plans, renewable energy (solar and wind), Open Meetings Act, water resources, placemaking, and community development through entrepreneurship and tourism. Ms. Reilly and her talented colleagues at MSU Extension bring leading edge programming to fill knowledge gaps and ultimately help communities make smarter decisions. For fun, she likes to exercise, cook, and plan trips to faraway places.
Mary Reilly is a land use educator with Michigan State University Extension. She serves northwest lower Michigan but also travels statewide to provide specialized training programs on request. Mary has over 20 years of experience in planning and zoning. She served as the Mason County Zoning and Building Director for 14 years as staff to the Planning Commission, Zoning Board of Appeals, Municipal Junk Authority, and Access Management Advisory Committee. Several other matters ran through Mary’s desk including all aspects of zoning and building permitting, floodplain verification, enforcement, airport zoning, and Michigan Natural River zoning. Ms. Reilly has extensive experience with wind turbine issues, particularly shadow flicker and wind turbine noise.
Prior to moving back to Michigan, Mary was a tribal planner for Jicarilla Apache Nation in Dulce, New Mexico and also worked in the private and non-profit sectors as a planner. Mary holds a master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor of science in Natural Resources and Ecology from the University of Michigan.