A plot on Baldwin Road, just east of Brown Road, won’t have a Del Taco after all, but a neighboring plot still could.
The Orion Township board granted a request by Carl Chandler to rezone nearly two acres on the east side of Baldwin, between Brown and Jordan Roads, from restricted business and single family residential classifications to general business.
The proposed use of the property is to construct a quick service restaurant (believed by all parties involved to be a Del Taco) and a commercial/office development.
Township Supervisor Jerry Dywasuk noted that the board’s approval only spoke to the rezoning, not the proposed construction.
Dywasuk said the general business zoning fits in with the township’s master plan.
‘You rezone for whatever the use is,? he said. ‘But this is a more intensive use and obviously the neighbors are not happy about it.?
One of those neighbors, the Gonzales family, who resides on Georgia Drive, brought an attorney to the Jan. 16 board meeting.
They said it was not properly ruled out that the land could be developed in its restricted business state. They also pointed to concerns over the lighting, noise and pollution among the detriments to their property value.
Dywasuk and Planning Commission/Zoning Board of Appeals Coordinator Charlotte Beiser both said that a Del Taco on that site would require a special land use permit – a process that would call for a public hearing.
A developer that considered a similar development option in 2006 on that same block eventually dropped the drive-thru restaurant portion of the request.
Their current office development proposal is still on track with some minor variances.