VBT planners get report on building projects under way for 2020

At the end of the Dec. 11, nine-minute meeting of the Van Buren Township Planning Commission, Vidya Krishnan, who has been filling in as planning director until someone could be hired to replace Ron Akers, announced someone has been hired.
She said Dan Power of Walker will take over the position as of the first of the year.
Krishnan of McKenna Associates also announced a senior housing project will come before the planning commission in January.
Also, Mike’s Kitchen on the South Service Drive and Belleville Road is scheduled to be redone and an addition added. This will need Board of Zoning Appeals approval for the setback.
Camping World on the I-94 North Service Drive plans to tear down part of its building to make more space for outdoor parking of RVs and will need special land use approval, she said.
When asked if there are any houses being built in the township, Krishnan said building permits have been issued for homes in Cobblestone, Cobblestone Creek, and Cobblestone Ridge on West Huron River Drive, as well as at Townsend Park at Ecorse and Morton Taylor roads.
She said there are other projects in the planning stages, as well.
The commission meeting was called for a housekeeping procedure. The public hearing and approval for rezoning of a DTE parcel at 8001 Haggerty Rd. from C1, General Business, to M1, Light Industrial, had been approved by the commission in September.
But, by the time it was ready to go to the township board for approval, a requested combination of parcels had taken place and it had a new tax parcel identification number.
Krishnan said when the rezoning is presented to the board it has to have the actual ID number and so they decided to do a public hearing again and vote again on the recommendation on the rezoning and present it to the board with the new number.
The commission again voted to recommend the rezoning to the board. Preliminary site plan approval had already been approved.
DTE Energy wants to construct an Alternate System Operation Center (ASOC) to function as an emergency back-up facility for the DTE Downtown Campus Electrical Systems Operation Center (ESOC).