Van Buren Township Planners OK addition for A.D. Transport

A.D. Transport at 45101 Yost Rd. now has permission to tear down part of an old building, leaving the 365-square-foot office area and updating it, and to build an 11,875-square-foot warehouse addition.
The Van Buren Township Planning Commission voted unanimously at its Nov. 13 regular meeting to grant preliminary and final site plan approval all at once for the project.
Gary Percy, one of the A.D. Transport owners, said the building is old and not functional, and this updating and enlarging will make it useable. The site is south of Yost Road.
Vidya Krishnan of McKenna planning consultants is filling in as director of planning and economic development until a replacement for Ron Akers can be hired.
Krishnan said Percy owns most of the land in that area but a parcel division goes through the center of the building, so he will have to consolidate the parcels. She said the 23’ height of the building needs to be added to the site plan.
Krishnan said Percy is working with Wayne County to abandon Yost Road, which is a dead end and runs through the company’s private property. She said since the road may be abandoned, the township won’t require them to put in a sidewalk through the private property to a dead end.
She said also the warehouse won’t require landscaping since Yost may be abandoned. The warehouse will have galvanized steel siding and has minimal visibility from Yost Road. No signage is planned at this time.
The township’s engineering consultant from Fishbeck Thompson Carr & Huber said there are no sanitary or water leads to the warehouse, only to the office and they will remain. He said the 1” water service is from adjoining Canton Township. Fire suppression is not needed according to the fire marshal. The project will disturb less than an acre of the site.
“If Yost Road is abandoned, shouldn’t they get an address on Belleville Road?” asked VBT Treasurer Sharry Budd, who sits on the commission.
Director of Public Service Matthew Best said it is not a problem to get a new address.
Director Best said Yost is a dead end and to the north is Canton and to the south is VBT. He said trucks are driving onto Yost and then turning around on private property.
He said some trucks are missing the turn into Costco and their GPS is telling them to turn this way. He said the semis are backing up onto Belleville Road, trailer first. He said abandonment is a safer process and the township has moved to abandon the property.
Percy explained the boundaries of his property and said they have been asking for the abandonment for many years.
“It’s been a challenge,” he said, noting the county is for it and has already voted on it. There is an issue that has to do with DTE and an easement. “I think it eventually will go through,” Percy said.
He said his company originally purchased the site in question from the Wayne County Road Commission.
Percy said their company’s security cameras show that when a truck gets on Yost, it backs up onto Belleville Road and it’s just a matter of time until someone gets killed there, under a trailer.
“You can’t see it,” he said.
Percy said the address change won’t be a problem because another one of their buildings in Canton has a Belleville Road address and they could just use that.
In other business at the 41-minute meeting, the commission:
• Voted to send to the township board a recommendation for approval of rezoning from RM Multiple Family to M-1 Light Industrial of a narrow band of land, part of the ITC corridor, at Ashley Crossroads South Development to make way for parking 88 trucks. Ashley Capital said it leases the land from ITC and has ITC’s approval for this rezoning. Krishnan said Ashley already is required to improve Ecorse Road in that area for the new Ashley North development; and
• Heard Commissioner Medina Atchinson say where she sits at her desk at work, she sees the trucks going south on Belleville Road from Costco. She said they are supposed to be heading north to Michigan Avenue and then to I-275 to hit the freeway system. She said she is concerned about preserving Belleville Road’s surface and reducing the traffic. Best said if you look at the site plan for Costco, it’s all laid out to have the trucks go to I-275. He said there are two sets of trucks, Swift Trucking and Costco trucks, that leave the site. He said the township ordinance officer has been trying to get them to follow the approved route and other township officials have been meeting with them on the issue.