VBT planners OK Sheetz station for Haggerty/Ecorse site

After a delay following a rowdy public hearing on July 10, Skilken Gold/Premier-Dequindre II LLC received support from the Van Buren Township Planning Commission on Sept. 11 for a Sheetz gas station/restaurant on the southwest corner of Haggerty and Ecorse roads.
The commission sent the request for special land use on to the township board for the final decision, with a recommendation for approval. The special land use approval was limited to the present project and did not cover all the land owned by Sheetz at the site.
Under the present township ordinance, gasoline filling stations and drive-thru establishments require special land use approval and a public hearing with the planning commission in the C-1 District.
At the Sept. 11 meeting, the commission also unanimously approved preliminary site plan approval, based on the township board’s approval of the special land use.
After the public hearing in July, the commission had a series of questions for the Sheetz project and all were answered by the Sept. 11 meeting and the request was revised to address issues.
David Bruckelmeyer of Sheetz said the family company now has 750 locations. He showed the pictures of the 16 family members who make the decision.
He said Sheetz has an investment of from $9 million to $10 million in the Van Buren Township project. He said they are hiring local contractors and engineers and there will be 30 to 35 full-time positions.
He said Sheetz supports Special Olympics; Sheetz for Kids, which is adopting 16 children at Christmas; and donations to schools, among other donations.
He said Newsweek had just named Sheetz as the second-best retailer in the nation to work for.
The project is a gasoline fueling station, convenience store, and drive-thru restaurant including a 6,139-square-foot convenience store and restaurant building and a 4,786.7-square-foot canopy with 12 fueling pumps.
Bruckelmeyer said last November Sheetz visited the site with Michigan EGLE [Energy, Great Lakes and Environment] and will be working with EGLE on plans for the wetlands and floodplains.
He said Sheetz checked out the market data to see if the development was needed and they found there was a 60 percentile fuel demand at that site and a 70 percentile market need for food. This is based on the number of traffic and people.
“We are very confident of the need,” he said.
Engineer Mike Leppek of Fishbeck said they are working with EGLE on wetlands and permits for the county drain and a water main under Haggerty Road. A sanitary sewer will go under the county drain on Ecorse, and they are working with the county on that. He said as Sheetz gets the county permits, they will share them with the township prior to construction.
Township treasurer Sharry Budd, who sits on the planning commission, said she went by the Sheetz site in Romulus. It was not yet opened when she went by the first time, but the next time she drove by it was very busy. She said the building was very nice looking.
Bruckelmeyer urged the rest of the commission to go down to Romulus to see its site before its review of the final site plan. Sheetz opened its first store in the state in Romulus and now has many approved for construction throughout the Metro-Detroit area.
Commission chairman Brian Cullin asked about the flooding that happens at that corner and Bruckelmeyer said they are figuring out how to address that. He said they assessed a high-water mark and they are raising the site so they can dig out to drain. He said Sheetz spent a significant amount of money on that so it will be appropriately designed.
Chairman Cullin said residents have determined that the sit-down restaurant at Sheetz will be the only one in that area and they would have to drive to Belleville and Tyler roads to find another sit-down restaurant.
In other business at the two-hour-14-minute meeting, the commission:
• Approved a final site plan amendment for Zippy Belleville Real Estate, LLC for relocation of its auto wash monument sign from the south side of its project to the north side of the property at 11600 Belleville Rd. The commission approved the project last December. Commissioner Jeff Jahr had concerns about whether the size conformed to the sign ordinance and director of planning and economic development Dan Power said the sign would be brought back to the commission if there were any problems. The sign will have digital messages, but they can only change the words every hour, under the ordinance;
• Heard Ron Akers, director of municipal services, give a report on a legal opinion by township attorneys on the plan by Pulte Homes of Michigan to build homes on the northest corner of Morton Taylor and Tyler roads in what is part of an old Planned Unit Development for Walden Woods. At first it was thought the PUD could be amended into a Planned Residential Development (PRD), but that doesn’t seem legal. Akers said deliberations on the situation is a work in progress. “It would not be a PRD. It would stay one big PUD,” Akers said, even though the township no longer has PUDs. Commissioner Jahr was concerned about which rules the commission would follow to assess development there and Akers said he would pass that concern on to the attorneys. Commissioner Medina Atchinson said residents say they want more open space and the planning commission needs to have flexibility. Akers said the final draft of the legal opinion in the commission packet is still being worked on, but they wanted the planning commission to know what was going on; and
• Heard Donovan Smith, a principal planner with McKenna Associates, explain a project he will be working on for the next year on “Missing Middle Housing.” The township applied for a Michigan Housing Readiness Incentive Grant and was awarded $45,000 for the study that he will do. It will review the VBT housing market for an update to the township’s 2020 Master Plan. It will come up with a Middle Housing Plan, Zoning Ordinance Recommendations, and an Implementation Plan. He said they are in the kickoff phase now and he plans three workshops with the planning commission during their regular meetings and then in April they will set a public hearing. He will be sending out a survey and will hold monthly steering team meetings.