Meeting Docs:

Watch the meeting with our 4-11-2017 Northfield Township Board meeting LiveAgenda (complete)
4-11-2017 Northfield Township Board meeting Agenda
Northfield Township Manager's job description worksheets, from the packet addendum, converted to searchable text

4-11-2017 Northfield Township Board meeting Packet (7MB) converted to searchable text

Says Master Plan “Needs No Big Changes;”

Adopts Resolution Supporting “North Village” Park Plan

by David Gordon

The Planning Commission voted 3-1 to cut ties with Cobalt Communications, a firm hired by the previous Board of Trustees to survey residents about issues raised by the Biltmore LLC subdivision proposal, which was eventually rejected.

The motion was made by PC Chair Larry Roman and supported by Commissioners Brad Cousino and Cecelia Infante. Trustee Janet Chick, the Board’s liaison to the PC, voted no. Commissioners Amy Steffens, John Zarzecki and Sam Iaquinto were absent.

The Cobalt survey has been bogged down since early 2016 because of problems identifying exactly what questions would be asked. Charges of bias and lack of focus headed the list of problems with the survey, according to public comments from citizens, the Board and the PC.

“I didn’t hear a lot of support from the Board of Trustees for continuing the survey” said Roman. “The use of Cobalt does not benefit the Planning Commission in reviewing the Master Plan.” Cousino clarified “we are recommending the Board nullify the contract. If somebody wants to use it…it’s up for grabs….but the PC doesn’t need to participate.”

Cobalt has already been paid $8,416 of its $16,832 contract, although no survey was ever finalized. Cobalt offered a refund of $3,916 in a February 24 email.

Chick claimed that the Board had voted to direct the PC to go ahead with the survey during the Joint Meeting on March 28, but Roman and Infante disagreed. “There were a lot of opinions, but no vote,” said Roman.

He said the PC intends to use direct community participation such as workshops, plus possibly an online survey, to gather input as part of the Master Plan review being done this year. The PC directed township planner Patrick Sloane to provide by April 19th a proposal, timetable and budget for the review.

Both Roman and Cousino said that the current Master Plan did not need any major changes. Sloane said new Master Plan will incorporate recommendations for farmland preservation and for revitalizing of the entire downtown area, including the “North Village” concept plan that was unveiled at a joint BT-PC meeting on March 28.

In other action, Infante volunteered to act as a liaison with the Downtown Planning Group, and a PC member to be named later will do the same with the Farmland and Natural Features Preservation Committee.

The PC also will be working on updating the township sign ordinance and reviewing the implications of Michigan’s new law permitting medical marijuana businesses, among other projects during 2017.

Meeting documents:

Residential/Business Mix Would Cover 40% of Site, Or Not

By DAVID GORDON

The presentation of the “North Village Master Plan” was the focus of the March 28 Board of Trustees meeting. The draft plan was created by the Downtown Planning Group (DPG) and includes green spaces for passive recreation; an amphitheater, a pavilion with restrooms, a network of paths, a small beach plus a mix of businesses, housing and parking on the 23-acre parcel which surrounds the Whitmore Lake Post Office.

McKenna project manager Paul Lippens spent nearly an hour presenting the plan and answering questions from the Board and the public. A PowerPoint of what was shown at the Board meeting can be accessed here.

North Village Master Plan Whitmore Lake, McKenna Associates, 2017 (3.1MB)

A more comprehensive version of the same plan, including detailed survey results, is available in the Planning Commission packet provided for their April 5^th meeting.

http://www.twp-northfield.org/Apr_5__2017_PC_Packet.pdf (I will extract this asap)

A lakefront park has been a hugely popular idea with township residents for many years. It was identified as a high priority in both the 1996 and the 2010 community surveys that the Planning Commission use when writing the overall township Master Plan. The township purchased the parcel, locally referred to as the Van Curler property, for $329,000 in 2016. It had been sitting idle for decades.

Lippens said the North Village plan was created with public input from surveys mailed to taxpayers, responses at the October “Trunk or Treat” ribbon cutting ceremony, a design workshop and interviews with six business owners in and out of Whitmore Lake. The results from the outreach were part of the process directed by the 11-member DPG and their six contracted planners/designers from McKenna.

The surveys showed that 61-64% of residents wanted a park for recreation only while 26-28% preferred the addition of businesses and residences. (11% “responded along different lines”).

The DPG preferred concept, dubbed the “Synthesis Plan”, favors the 26-28% respondents who wanted the mixed use in order to offset infrastructure costs. In addition to all the park amenities, the “Synthesis Plan” includes 35 row houses, 100 lofts and 23 retail/office/apartments.

Treasurer Lenore Zelenock questioned how the DPG reconciled their “Synthesis Plan” with the fact that residents favored a recreation-only plan by a two-to-one margin.

DPG member Jack Secrist said that although a large majority wanted only a park, he felt that during the public workshop, “their opinions evolved with the things we talked about and they left, by in large…not 100%...realizing that some of the development makes good sense.”

About 50 people attended the workshop (including DPG, Board and Planning Commission members), while more than 300 people sent in surveys favoring the recreation-only concept, but most of them did not attend the workshop.

DPG Chair Barb Griffith, who also chairs the Downtown Development Authority, said a park was always considered a means of attracting both new residents and businesses to the downtown area.

She also said “I consider it a major flaw that we didn’t ask the question ‘Do you want a recreation-only park if it raises your taxes, or would you allow mixed-use development as part of the plan if it offsets the infrastructure cost?’”

“It’s hard to justify raising taxes, but maybe it’s time to send out a postcard and ask the community how we’d like to pay for the park,” she added.

The DPG “Purpose Statement” says that “The site shall be developed to minimize the fiscal impact to taxpayers…..and that development will subsidize public amenities.”

No other township park, public service or amenity pays for itself. Police, fire, medical rescue, the library, community center and schools all are financed with tax dollars.

Lippens said the DPG hopes money for subsidizing the infrastructure cost would come from selling about 40% of the park to developers. It is uncertain is if the sale of the land would generate enough to cover the initial $2M of infrastructure cost.

Lippens said that once all three phases are complete, the plan’s total estimated value could reach $47M. The figures are rough estimates. The $9M Phase One would include $2M for most of public park features like the beach, pavilion, bandshell, restrooms and parking, while the remaining $7M would be spent on mixed-use development.

Roughly speaking, financing a $2M park for recreation only would cost $25/year per household over a 20-year period, plus interest.

($2M ÷20 years = $100,000/yr ÷ 4,000 households = $25/year. Plus interest.)

Lippens said the next step is soliciting RFPs (Requests for Proposals) to see if developers like the project. “The Board seemed to indicate it would be a good idea to test the market,” he said, but the Board didn’t ok the RFP at this meeting.

Once approved by the Board, the North Village plan will be incorporated into a new, comprehensive plan being devised for the entire downtown area, and both plans would then be woven into this year’s review of the township Master Plan.

In a related matter, Patrick Sloane, our township’s primary planner from McKenna, outlined goals for 2017 such as incorporating farmland preservation into the scheduled overall Master Plan review; creating a capital improvement plan; rewriting the sign ordinance and drafting a policy on marijuana dispensaries, among others.

In other action, the Board approved spending $38,000 to monitor water infiltration into the township sewer lines….a project that entails camera inspections of three of the largest sewer pipes of the Waste Water Treatment Plant system. The clay pipe sewer lines are more than 60 years old. Ninety percent of the cost would come from grant money, according to township engineer consultant Brian Reubel.

Watch the meeting with our 3-28-2017 Northfield Township Board of Trustees joint PC meeting LiveAgenda

Later this week we will post our photographs of the October Van Curler "North Village" park grand opening.

2017-03-28 Northfield Township Board of Trustees joint Planning Commission meeting Agenda

Memo re Controller, 3-28-2017

2017-03-28 Northfield Township Board of Trustees joint PC meeting Packet (6.4MB)

Trustee Beliger explains her support for hiring another Township Manager:

At approximately 2 hours, 33 minutes, 36 seconds into the meeting, Trustee Beliger responds to a questions posed during Call to the Public:

"Was the manager worth the cost? Why wasn't an assessment done?"

Trustee Beliger:

“….regarding…a comment about ‘show us the assessment of how much money we saved or didn’t save with a manager’….….that’s like….in one way, I don’t know how someone could do such a thing….how could one show that one has saved or cost more money on a project….since there’s only one time-line in life, sometimes you can’t always say that we could have saved had we done this….it’s not always that clear cut…it just seems like possibly there’s no way to accurately quantify what could have been saved or not saved…perhaps he did save us money….perhaps he cost us a heck of a lot of money ….but compared to what….we can’t compare two timelines of history….we only have the timeline that we have….I think some things were indeed a waste of money but…..maybe there’s some savings somewhere too…I’m not trying to justify one thing or another….it’s just…it’s a question that can’t be answered…..that’s all."

Nearly every phrase is timeless: