VBT holds short business meeting, long comment session

The Van Buren Township Board of Trustees pushed its regular meeting’s start time to 5 p.m. on Dec. 16 in order to go into executive session with its attorney on specific pending litigation and then come back into regular session to complete a brief agenda at its last meeting in 2025.
The closed-door session lasted 35 minutes and then the board went back into regular session.
The board passed a motion to accept the attorney’s recommendation on pending litigation as expressed during the closed-door session. It was later explained the litigation was from someone who fell on a sidewalk in Haggerty subdivision before the township redid the sidewalks. The board decided to settle the case to avoid attorney costs to go to trial.
In other business, the board:
• Unanimously approved a resolution for the long-term maintenance of the storm water management system at JSB Builders, 6060 Schooner Dr.; and
• Unanimously approved drain crossing agreements with Wayne County and Sheetz for water main easements across county drains for the Sheetz development at the southwest corner of Haggerty and Ecorse roads.
Supervisor Kevin McNamara said he was delaying all the public comment until the end of the meeting and, since he knew more people were coming, he would recess the meeting until 6 p.m., the regular meeting time, so everyone could get to the meeting to speak.
After the 14-minute recess – with a large audience gathered — the meeting started with supervisor McNamara giving a statement on the proposed data center that was announced the previous week.
He said he would allow public comment until everyone was done speaking who wanted to speak. He would limit comments to three minutes because there were so many speakers.
McNamara said first he would explain where the township is on this and the township would put frequently asked questions on the township website to announce new information.
He said the property in question has been for sale for 20 years and once was proposed as a place to build Tiger Stadium.
He said the state has zoning laws, and, “I hate ‘em. I hate ‘em, but we are stuck with them. We have to have a legal reason to deny the data center.” He said a series of warehouses was proposed for that site and the developers met with the neighbors. The neighbors said they didn’t want trucks and it was proposed that the trucks access only from I-94. The property owners kept looking for a tenant for the site and found a data center. They held an information meeting with local residents on Dec. 11 and “packed the house with people who didn’t want data centers for 100 reasons.”
McNamara said data centers are a named use in the zoning ordinance and so the township board will not vote on it. It will be handled by the planning commission, he said.
He said the developers also will get permission from the state of Michigan on power and won’t be on the township’s grid. He said wildlife and wetlands will be handled by the state department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE). They cannot access the township’s aquafir and will have to get their water from the Great Lakes Water Authority. Discharge will be into the sanitary sewer and will not go into any waterway, he said.
“We are not going to allow it to go into the lake…” he said. “If there’s an eagle, that might be a problem” or if there are other creatures.
He said sound is a big issue and the township allows no more than 67 decibles at the edge and, “We are told it’s less.” He said township officials and consultants are going to drive all over the Midwest to do their own sound study of established data centers and not rely on the developer’s studies.
He said he does not know if they would sue if the township turned them down, but the suit with Visteon took years and he would not put the township in a lawsuit, unless necessary.
McNamara said pollution is another issue and if the township can show that their generators would create pollution, that would be something. With no discharge to the lakes and streams, he doesn’t know if water pollution is an issue.
“We’re going to tell you everything we know, but we have laws we have to abide by,” he said, telling people to call his office or the planning department if they have questions.
Then, McNamara turned the microphone over to the people who wanted to talk. Thirty-three people spoke against the data center, with some of that number getting up several times to talk.
After two hours of comments, McNamara said he was wrapping up the session, since the people talking at that point all had spoken before, sometimes several times. He said he has taken notes on the issues they presented. He said in the past developments have proven to be improved when the public offered its ideas.