By Meg Peters
Review Staff Writer
In a 5-2 vote to follow the Orion Township Planning Commission’s lead, the township board voted to deny the North Ridge concept plan for a new residential development on Maybee Rd.
Clerk Penny Shults and Supervisor Chris Barnett opposed the denial, which was approved by Treasurer Mark Thurber and Trustees John Steimel, Mike Flood and Donni Steele.
The planning commission originally recommended denial after applicant Pinnacle Homes proposed the plan for 28 homes over 16.76 acres of land at 3192 Maybee in November.?’The proposed development would be on the north side of Maybee, about a quarter mile west of Baldwin.
The township board could have gone against commissioners? recommendation for denial and approved the plan, or sent back the current application to the commission for further inspection and amendment.
If Pinnacle Homes wants to pursue the development any further, they have to start the application process back from the beginning.
‘The reason Penny and I both voted no was because Pinnacle wanted to present new information based on the feedback they got from the planning commission,? Barnett said. ‘I thought it was their right to go back to make their case.??
Trustees disagreed saying Pinnacle did not hit all the eligibility requirements deemed necessary?’to convert the current zoning to a PUD, namely providing a community benefit.
One of Pinnacle’s proposed benefits was a $40,000 pathway along the International Transmission Company (ITC) corridor. The half mile path would connect the development to the east of the proposed community to a future master planned trail system at the ITC corridor near Baldwin, creating a 1.2 mile loop.??
As Pinnacle Homes found out upon further investigation they would have to attain easements all along the ITC corridor of the private property owners whose property abuts the corridor.
‘When you’re not able to build it how can you say it’s a community benefit?? Steimel said.
Pinnacle offered the township the $40,000 to put towards other safety path projects in return.
‘I wouldn’t mind $40,000 in the safety path fund,? Shults said.
At the start of the discussion Shults made the motion to deny the Planned Unit Development (PUD), Pinnacle’s effort to rezone the land from its current zoning as Suburban Farms’which permits five residential units on 2.5 acre lots? to allow for 28, or 1.6 units per acre. However by the end of the discussion Shults? tune had changed, and asked to rescind her motion.
‘I feel like we were giving them [the developers] a false hope, for the lack of a better word, that this would be a good plan,? she said. ‘If you take a holistic approach, like their planner said, this density kind of makes sense with the densities along Maybee Rd,? agreeing with the developer.
‘I think it’s a good transition, when you look at what’s to the south of us and the east of us. I think it makes good sense,? Planner John Ackerman said representing Atwell, Pinnacle’s planner.??
North Ridge would be adjacent to the Rolling Hills Subdivision, which was developed with the same size single family lots proposed for North Ridge, according to the site plan. The site contains .27 acres of regulated wetlands, with a proposed 1.3 acre retention pond, making the open space acreage in the entire community just under 24 percent, or about 2.5 acres.
‘These lots all along here are quintessential of suburban farms. All of a sudden you plop this down and that’s where this density sort of runs into a problem,? Steimel said. ‘People who are trying to live that quintessential suburban farms on either side of this development. Frankly I have to consider that too.???