5/28/14 - The recent settlement of a lawsuit by Handy Township has prompted a proposal to rezone more than 200 acres of land just west of the Village of Fowlerville into an industrial zone, and that has many residents worried that their rural homesteads could soon be neighbors to a factory. The lawsuit, which had been filed by the Mitch Harris Building Company, involved a failed housing development that had been planned for the southwest corner of Grand River and Nicholson Road. The builder alleged the township had failed to provide the property with sewer access after levying a $3.9 million special assessment. Township officials countered that the developer failed to reimburse the municipality for providing initial test wells. The settlement, reached on March 28th, dismissed the claims without cost and allowed the township to purchase the land for what the deed says is the âfull consideration of $1.â With the land now in its possession, the township is hoping to rezone it and several other adjoining parcels it bought at tax sale from its current residential status to industrial business. Officials hope to then sell it and help pay off their sewer-bond debt owed to the county. Township Supervisor Hank Vaupel says they have received several inquiries about the land for industrial purposes, but no concrete offers. But for the residents whose land abuts the property to be rezoned, the notion that their way of life should be disrupted to help the township dig itself out of the financial hole it got itself into with its sewer debt is not fair and they plan to fight it. Among them is Roger Chance, who lives on Nicholson Road. He tells WHMI that the townshipâs process is exactly backward as normally a specific proposal would be brought forward with a request to rezone the land. But in this case, officials want to rezone it and then open it up to all interested parties, which he says will severely limit their ability to control what goes in there. It would also include access to the railroad, which has many residents concerned that heavy industry would be attracted to the land. Vaupel says that any development would be subject to a rigid site plan review and any uses not covered would require a Special Use Permit. The zoning being proposed would allow for everything from warehousing to plastics manufacturing and township resident Anthony Szura, who also lives on Nicholson Road, says the bottom line is that the nature of where they live would drastically change. He believes the driving force is the township trying to dig itself out of debt made from previous poor decisions to lay sewer lines without adequate assurances that it could be paid for. Both Chance and Szura, and many of their neighbors, say they are hoping to get the public to attend an upcoming special meeting of the Handy Township Planning Commission at 7:30pm on June 3rd at the township hall at 135 North Grand Avenue, where a public hearing on the rezoning proposal will be held. They say if enough people stand up and let officials know this isnât what they want in their backyards, they might just force them to rethink the plan. (JK)
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