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Highlights:

Trustee Wayne Dockett opened the meeting by criticizing the Board's plans to tap the rainy day fund for $400,000-$500,000.  This subject dominated the February 27th Visioning session

Half the money, the price of a house, will be spent on a fancy boardroom to hold meetings that almost nobody attends.  "Another two hundred grand" is to be spent expanding the Senior Center parking lot.  Only 2% ($10,000) is slated to be spent on downtown Whitmore Lake.

LiveMeetingMinutes for the March 4, 2015 PC meeting. 

March 4 Clickable Video Highlights:

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If you insist on watching the meeting the old fashioned way, click here to watch on Livestream

As usual, the discussion centered on the Master Plan.  Several Commissioners are denying that the current push toward remastering and rezoning have anything to do with Biltmore.  At this meeting, Commissioner Cousino called them on this.

Township Manager Fink revealed the existence of "back of the envelope calculations" showing no need to run the Biltmore waste through existing lines, particularly those of the North Territorial special assessment district.  He did this before the public discovered how little anyone knew about the state of Northfield Township's Wastewater Treatment System.

To those wondering why Biltmore came sniffing around when it did, Fink offered a clue in his mention of conversations with "commercial [real estate] brokers."

Chairperson Chockley released the results of the poll asking PC members their preferred priorities for the coming year.

Commissioner Cousino asked an interesting question.  The Ann Arbor School District has opened up a large number of School of Choice slots.  Does this increase the attractiveness of non-AAPS district housing?

The usual suspects again advocated fact free planning.  Other commissioners objected.  Sewer systems and road capacities do matter.  On that subject, some commissioners expressed an interest in seeing an existing traffic study.  This is the traffic analysis submitted five months ago for the proposed Nowatzke Truck & Trailer Fuel station.  This study was included in the September 23, 2014 B.o.T. meeting packet.  According to the study, the North Territorial Road & Whitmore Lake Road intersection is rated at LOS (level of service) E and F during peak traffic hours.  That's as bad as it gets. 

If you paid attention during the MDOT/US-23 meetings, you'd have heard MDOT say that this intersection wasn't their responsibility.  Here is the MDOT right-of-way map documenting that fact.   The MDOT maps for the entire US-23 corridor through Northfield Township are downloadable here.

Commissioner Stanalajczo again argued that planners should be planning for twenty years in the future.  This was despite the fact that he's loudly declared that the Master Plan he helped create only two years ago was already a fail.  He'd served on both the Planning Commission and the Board when that plan was created and approved.  If you can't plan two years down the road, why would you expect us to believe you can plan for twenty years ahead?

Township Planner Lewan gave a presentation showing the density of housing enabled by our current zoning, including density bonuses.  It's on the Livestream video now; I will capture the drawings in a later report.

Planner Lewan and our Township manager both made the case for a scientific survey of Township residents before changing the two year old Master Plan.  Commissioner Stanalajczo argued that, given a survey, there would be no need for public input into this year's version.  His idea is that the public input from 2012's Master Planning process should be recycled. Click here to watch a 1.5 minute Youtube video clip of Stanalajczo saying it.  What do you think?

Again, several commissioners expressed an interest in reading traffic studies for the Territorial Road/Whitmore Lake Road intersection and area.  The study prepared for the Nowatzke application and delivered to the Board of Trustees in September, 2014, is readable online here and may be downloaded, from here, as a pdf.

Lisa Lemble's Meeting Minutes are below:  The Livestream is here.

 

The February 27th Board Visioning Retreat was held in the clubhouse of the Links Golf course on Six Mile road.

Lisa Lemble's Minutes, below, (and downloadable here) capture the broad outline of the conversations as directed by Township Manager Fink.  They do not reflect the spirit of the event. 

It would be hard to capture the chill I felt hearing our Township Manager voice the idea of assembling a list of all the large land parcels and their perc test results. 

Nor do the dry and dispassionate minutes capture Supervisor Engstrom's bizarro-world theory of economic development, to wit, the problem with Northfield Township is that no one who lives here works here, and that to solve that what we really need is to build a bunch of houses so that retail business follows and then, magically, industry will follow and everyone will work in Northfield Township.

What's also not in the minutes is Engstrom's giddy opinionating, that the board should enact a master plan amendment even without Biltmore so that we will be prepared, or should I say, pre-prostrated, for the next developer.  I am happy to report that several board members objected to this.

Minutes 2015-02-27retreatp0700w

 

Minutes 2015-02-27retreatp1700w

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 24 Board of Trustees Workshop

Click here to watch the Feb. 24th Meeting on Livestream (Audio only)

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Discussion items on the Agenda:

1. Liquor License – Rolling Meadows
2. Employee Handbook
3. Job Descriptions
4. Capital Improvement Plan Update
5. US-23 Project Update
6. Sewer Capacity Study Update
7. Horseshoe Lake Refund Update

 

 

Click here to watch the Feb. 18th Meeting on Livestream

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Meeting notes, partial transcription

00:08:45 (livestream time)
Board of Trustees Report
[Trustee Janet Chick]
"The BOT met February tenth. The Board approved revised fee schedules for the planning commission applications and the ZBA's Northfield Township fees of fifteen... one thousand six hundred fifty were decreased to seven hundred fifty dollars.  And the ZBA fee for single unit residential application was reduced to $295.  This brings us more in line with surrounding communities.   Three resolutions were also adopted for the Board of Review.  One allows an alternative date for March Board of Review.  The second allows for an alternative start date for July and December Board of Review.  And the third allows residents to appeal to the Board of Review by letter.  Also, previous to that, there was a Board of Trustees workshop on January 27th and I apologize, I wasn't here to give that report; I had a family emergency.  But as requested, some of the Board members offered some comments on growth for Northfield.  While some of the members were specific about their ideas, there was, however, no consensus from the board as a whole on where or what kind or how much.  The board however in my opinion are open to discussing and possibly implementing changes on densities after comprehensive research and conversation on the implications for the Township are had first.  That's all I have."