At the May 26 meeting of the Van Buren Township Planning Commission it was announced that Visteon had amended its rezoning request earlier that day, so the commission postponed consideration of the request until its June 9 meeting.
About 20 people in the audience who are neighbors on Hannan Road to the parcels up for rezoning to make way for a future landfill-gas-to-electric-energy-generating plant at their backdoors had been ready to oppose the rezoning.
After the item was postponed, they filed out into the hallway and met with Visteon’s Director of Global Real Estate James J. Militello and Visteon attorney Timothy Stoker to voice their concerns.
After the meeting ended, Planning Commissioner Boynton talked to them, too, reportedly urging them to support the rezoning.
Especially upset were Mike and Shari West who had closed the day before the meeting on a house sold to them by Visteon as a residence. They said they had been trying to buy the house since last September, but the taxes “were screwed up” and didn’t get straightened out until recently.
They didn’t know the electrical generating plant was being planned for their back door until after they bought their dream home.
Shari said Darlene Lampe of Coldwell Banker Preferred Realtors handled the sale and Lampe told them she didn’t know about Visteon’s plans. Shari said Lampe lives on Marlowe Street in Van Buren Township.
Shari said Visteon officials told her the notice of the rezoning request was posted on her property, but Shari said it was posted two houses down and she hadn’t seen it.
She also said she suffers from multiple sclerosis and is afraid the vibrations, humming, or odors from the proposed plant will adversely affect her health.
Recently, Visteon held a private session designed for neighbors only to attend to explain the energy generating plant where videos of other plants were shown. The Wests weren’t invited.
While Visteon reported neighbors at the meeting were enthusiastic about the plans, the neighbors themselves said that is not true.
Although VBT officials were invited to the meeting, they chose not to attend.
Visteon first requested, on Feb. 11, rezoning of three parcels of about 18.3 acres in size from AG Agricultural & Estates District to OT, Office / Technology District and the planning commission held a public hearing on March 10.
Visteon then amended its application, removing the northern and southern parcels leaving a 10-acre site and then, on May 26, amended the application again to leave a square eight-acre parcel up for rezoning.
In a report to the commission at its May 26 meeting, Sally Hodges of McKenna Associates planning consultants said Visteon had submitted a separate request to the Township Zoning Enforcement Officer requesting a formal interpretation of whether a cogeneration building is a permitted use in the OT District under 14.02.12 of the Zoning Ordinance.
Visteon contends it is, describing the cogeneration plant as an “essential service building” since it will provide hot water to heat the Visteon buildings and provide electricity to DTE as regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Visteon said the $25 million investment will bring increased taxes to the township and schools. The building is estimated to be 136 feet long by 58 feet wide by 20 feet high. A permit to Hoosier Energy to install the facility was approved by Michigan DEQ last November.
Hodges had recommended the planning commission recommend denial of the requested rezoning (that was amended in March) to the township board, because the site wraps around single-family residential uses, the site is irregular in shape, and not compatible with the residential neighborhood. There also was no assurance that access to the site would be limited to Visteon Way because the proposed site reached to Hannan Road.
In order to head off a negative vote, Visteon changed its request to reduce the size of the site and to promise to cut off any access to Hannan Road until the site on Hannan is rezoned for non-residential use in the future.
The conditions offered by Visteon agree to develop the western part of the Visteon property first, before development occurs on the eastern portion and when the western portion is submitted for site plan approval, Visteon will designate an area to allow ingress and egress across the western portion to the eastern portion to and from Visteon Way.
At the May 26 meeting, Visteon attorney Stoker told the commission that they received McKenna’s letter and reviewed the comments and then decided to change their request.
He said the entire frontage on Hannan Road has been removed, along with a long narrow parcel.
He said he knows the staff and planning commission will need time to study the changes.
“We apologize to the community,” Stoker said to those present. “We’re just trying to be responsive.”
Dan Swallow, VBT Director of Planning and Economic Development, said there was some correspondence to the planning commission concerning the rezoning application and they will save it and read it at the June 9 meeting.
When the item was postponed, neighbor Ernie Tozer of 9200 Hannan, wanted to ask about the situation. He said they are talking about a piece of property right behind a house that was recently sold to a couple for a residence.
Swallow replied, “This is just a rezoning request.”
Boynton made a motion to postpone the item to the June 9 meeting, which passed unanimously and the unhappy crowd grumbled as it made its way out to the hallway to continue the discussion.
In other action at the 45-minute meeting on May 26, the commission gave preliminary site plan approval to Statewide Boring for a 17,500-square-foot addition to the north side of the existing building at 6401 Haggerty Road, between Ecorse and Van Born roads and backing up to I-275.
Mike Thomas, part owner and president of Statewide, said the company does large-scale machining and the present facility is full. They will use the additional space to expand their customer base and try to grow their business.
Among the items machined are windmill parts. Also, they worked on offshore oil drilling equipment for a firm in Cleveland, “but we may want to rethink that,” he said.
“We try not to be automotive,” he said, adding, “Last year 80% of our business came from out of Michigan.”
He said there are lots of machining businesses, but Statewide’s specialty is large machining.
“For large stuff, they have to come back to the Rust Belt, good old Michigan,” Thomas said. “My competition is on Groesbeck Highway.”
Hodges said that L&W will not allow the business cross access, so they had to modify their plans to stay on the site for parking. She recommended approval of the preliminary site plan, with a list of seven stipulations.