By Megan Kelley
Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
INDEPENDENCE TWP. — At its meeting on Sept. 24, the Independence Township Board of Trustees unanimously approved the scheduling of two public hearings for public road improvement special assessment districts (SAD) for the Sheringham Woods subdivision and the Spring Lake North subdivision. Both subdivisions are north of Maybee Road in the township.
According to township documents, both subdivisions collected owner signatures which have been verified at 66.71% and 68.68%, respectively, of total lineal feet of road frontage, just above the required 50% according to Michigan law.
For both projects, the township would be acting similar to a bank, explained Director of Assessing Kimberly Feigley.
Ross Dickerson was representing the Sheringham Woods subdivision, which has 55 parcels listed in the documents filed.
“They’ve already done some repairs. They will be coming back in the spring hopefully to kick this project off and do a mill and fill. The benefit of this is that for the HOA (Homeowners Association) to do it themselves, it’s about a third of the cost of RCOC (Road Commission of Oakland County) to go in and they tear everything out and start from scratch. So the HOA has the option to go in, mill and fill, do their own repairs and just put on two new inches of asphalt for this development,” Feigley said.
The Spring Lake North subdivision, is a larger project with 110 parcels in the designated area which includes two parks.
“Their cost in this SAD are significantly more. They have greater deterioration in this subdivision and more repairs needed that have not yet been addressed,” said Feigley. “Again, RCOC approval has been granted. They will have to pull permits, which they’re in the process of and everything else is pretty much identical to Sheringham Woods.”
The next steps will be to hold a public hearing on both projects on Nov. 26 where the board will receive cost estimates for the project and public comment regarding the petitions, proposed road improvements and the establishment of an SAD. Should the board choose to move forward, a second public hearing would likely be held to approve additional assessment for the SAD, said consultant Stephanie Simon-Morita.