Tri-community planners meet to set ways to work together for progress

At the end of a one-hour-20-minute meeting on July 30, members of the planning commissions of the city of Belleville and Van Buren and Sumpter townships agreed to set up subcommittees to work on mutual projects.
Van Buren Township director of municipal services Ron Akers volunteered to coordinate the effort. He said he could send out letters to the commission chairpersons.
Van Buren planning commission chairman Brian Cullin said the chairpersons could put this letter on their commissions’ agendas for discussion.
Director Akers said the subcommittee meetings would be for the regular members and be left open for others to participate. He said the meetings would be open to the public.
Alvis Brigis, a member of the Belleville Planning Commission, said the subcommittees could focus on grants, the local workforce, and lake coordination.
Members of the tri-community planners agreed to meet again in six months at 5 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026.
Attending the meeting were all seven Van Buren commissioners, four commissioners from the city of Belleville, and one commissioner from Sumpter.
Nineteen people sat around a group of tables at the Belleville High School Commons and other observers sat at tables around the room. Also attending were Van Buren Township supervisor Kevin McNamara and two township board trustees Donald Boynton and Kevin Martin, executive director of the Van Buren Downtown Development Authority Merrie Coburn, and several Van Buren employees.
Haile Brown from Congresswoman Debbie Dingell’s office also was present.
Belleville’s interim city manager Steve Jones gave a report about what was going on in Belleville.
Nicole VanAssche, newly appointed to the Sumpter Planning Commission and also chairperson of the Sumpter Parks and Recreation committee, was Sumpter’s only representative.
Cullin was selected to be the chairman for the meeting, and Akers then explained a long list of developments and projects in the township.
Then, Supervisor McNamara added the township is seeking a traffic light at the South I-94 Service Drive and Haggerty Road to try to stop all the accidents of drivers trying to turn left at that intersection. The township also has been alerted that in 2027 the federal government will patch Belleville Road between I-94 and the Belleville Bridge.
Akers said the township applied for a grant for sidewalks on South Street/Sumpter Road, as discussed at the last joint meeting. This was to be a shared project between the township and the city, but he said they didn’t get the grant.
He said there now are more residential developments in the township than there has been in the last ten years.
Cullin asked for an update on the Iron Belle Trail and why some parts are still unfinished. McNamara explained how the trail is being done in sections and it is complete from Grove Road to Van Buren Park.
He said in the next month they will cut the ribbon between the park and Waverly apartments, the next lap. Each section requires a grand opening due to the different grants involved. He said the 7.5-mile trail through the township has five or six sections.
McNamara said another trail section is from Pickle Park to the Denton Road Bridge. He said the township didn’t think they’d be able to take the trail over the bridge and so hadn’t gotten the easements necessary. But now the bridge will have a place for the trail. He said it will take several years before that link is complete.
He said they are working with Country Walk to get a connector trail to the Iron Belle Trail from Martinsville Road into the subdivision.
VanAssche said Sumpter is a rural area and its newest developments are a car wash at Bemis and Sumpter roads and the rebuilding of the gas station across the street. Also, she said, the senior care center opened in Sumpter. An auto body shop will open near King’s Auto.
She said she wants to know how to get grants. She said Sumpter did get a grant for a playscape and it is finally up. She said the three communities together are a great place to be with each having its unique qualities.
Brigis said what Van Buren builds at the other end of the bridge on the former DNR property will affect the city of Belleville and he asked for details on the project.
McNamara said they currently are getting public engagement on proposals and 800 people participated in a public survey. Then the township went over the findings. They hired Fishbeck engineers who put together two or three proposals and now they brought two more. The board will look at the concepts and there will be another open house. He said it is scheduled to be built next year.
“Whatever we build will make the quality of the community higher,” McNamara said. He said it will increase strong housing prices and the taxes will build wealth in the communities. He said it will help the city of Belleville because the city is in the center of the township.
Brigis said the data center proposal for just over Rawsonville Road on Textile in Washtenaw County now has massive opposition.
McNamara said the township met with DTE on that and DTE committed to a five-year plan to up the township’s power and they are building redundancy for electrical and gas power.
Brigis said data centers are great, but they are power-suckers, use a lot of water, and discharge like crazy. He said they let University of Michigan build the building so there is no tax money generated. Also, because of the U of M ownership it won’t be subject to local regulations.
McNamara said the data center is considered a privately owned post office which is exempt from taxes. He said the township has a data center, so he knows.
Brigis said he wanted to congratulate the people who turned away the radioactive waste that is now going to Texas.
“All the politicians thought that it impossible,” McNamara said.
Belleville commissioner John Juriga said he would like to buy the island in Belleville Lake from Van Buren Township for a dollar, so the city could fix the retaining wall that has failed. The island is washing away, he said. He said a grant from the Cozadd Foundation could pay for the work.
He said they could put in a retaining wall and make the island into a park.
McNamara said Van Buren is not selling property, but the township would be happy to work with him and Cozadd.
He said when they proposed taking down the lake in the past, the Belleville Yacht Club said they’d work with the township to fix up the island. He said he got a lot of push back on taking down the lake, and the plan was dropped.
He said the cleanest lakes in Michigan are regularly taken down in October and go back up in the spring after the repairs are complete. He said you can kill off the weeds this way and rebuild docks.
Van Buren treasurer Sharry Budd, who sits on the planning commission, recalled that the township used to take the lake down. But, then there was a move to take all the dams down on the Huron River. The township said the dam couldn’t be taken down because it was needed to make electricity, so French Landing was put back in production. Now a firm runs it for the township.
Van Buren commissioner Medina Atchinson asked if the dam is regularly inspected and Akers said the state of Michigan requires inspections twice a year and the dam is safe.
Atchinson said Up North lakeside property was lost when a dam failed. Akers said it was a decommissioned dam.
Belleville commission chairman Jim Courage asked where they are going from here with Juriga’s idea on the island.
McNamara said he will talk to his trustees to see if they want to spend $5,000 to see if it’s feasible. The answer belongs to the trustees, he said, noting he only has one vote.
Atchinson said she also was concerned about vacancies. She said Belleville, Van Buren and Sumpter are married and many residing in the tri-community don’t know exactly where they live. She wanted to know what the communities are doing about vacancies.
“In premier communities there are fewer vacancies,” she said, adding the communities could do something together. She said she called Kroger to see if she could get them to come out, but there were not enough rooftops.
Akers said they could make a list of where the vacancies are and the size, like Aerotropolis has for the township’s industrial sites.
Van Buren Township commission vice-chairman Jeff Jahr said in the classes he’s had on planning he’s learned, “We can’t make them come, but we can attract them … like moths to the flame.”
Brigis said the traditional business models aren’t working. He proposed attracting tech companies to the smaller vacant spaces downtown.
He said since this area is near the airport, they could set up a conference to attract tech companies.
Near the end of the meeting a flood advisory was heard from someone’s phone and the rain started to fall in a torrent. Many hesitated to go out the door to get to their vehicles, but Van Buren commissioner Peter Creal said, “It’s not going to get any better than this.”