By Megan Kelley
Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
INDEPENDENCE TWP. — At its meeting on Jan. 21 the Independence Township Board of Trustees approved a special assessment district (SAD) public road improvement policy as well as a total annual cap on the SADs in the township. The board also scheduled three public hearings for three different subdivisions seeking to utilize the township’s SAD program for road improvements.
Last year, the township began working with subdivisions to put together an SAD program to help financially with road improvements. However, the township did not, at the time, have a policy regarding public road SADs so public hearings regarding the projects that were necessary for final approval were put on the back burner until a policy could be put into place.
“I want to emphasize that this starts to lay it all out. We don’t know what we don’t know, necessarily, because this is a new project. The policy just outlines the steps and everything that is going forward,” said Supervisor Chuck Phyle. “There will be an opportunity to add additional resolutions going forward and there will also be an opportunity, probably in the second quarter of this year, to establish an advisory board to come and talk about things that we can do to tweak this out. It will be made of township individuals as well as residents.”
In previous meetings, the board had been clear in its intention for the township to simply act as a bank for individual projects.
Clerk Cari Neubeck and Trustee Sam Moraco raised concerns with the policy presented as it included references to engineers, contractors, planners. The policy also contained language that could involve the township more than just financially by having township employees help with the planning and contracting of services raising the question of who would pay for that work being done and how.
“If we’re involved in the beginning phases of the preliminary estimates and project costs before it gets signed, how is that being paid in advance? This seems like this is what’s happening prior to the final SAD being approved and the tax roll being done and this preliminary work that we’re now involved in opposed to the petitioner being involved in worries me,” Moraco said.
Moraco also added that he was concerned with getting involved further because if residents or Homeowners Associations are unhappy with the work the township does or the contractor the township chose, it will fall back on them (the township).
Township Attorney Dan Kelly clarified that the township is already involved in mapping and when engineering is being done, the plans still need to be reviewed for compliance and sent to the Road Commission of Oakland County (RCOC). Kelly added that the policy does include language for collecting for fees the township may incur by providing those services.
The board ultimately approved the policy with a few changes and clarifications made to the document including that the township will only approve a project so long as the contractor is one that has been approved by the RCOC and that additional costs inured by the township (outside of township staff) would be passed on to the HOA as part of the SAD.
The board then approved a total annual cap for public road improvement SADs at $3.2 million for this first initial pilot of the program.
“We are tying this money up. We’re paying it out, yes we’re going to get it back but it’s over a 10 year period of time,” Phyle said. “That’s the dollar amount, which, based on everything we came up with, was a comfortable amount for the township to be prudent and fiscally responsible for the citizens.”
Lastly, the board set three public hearings for three SAD projects (Sheringham Woods subdivision, Spring Lake North subdivision and ITC utility parcels, and Chestnut Hill Farms subdivision, ITC parcel and excluding Chickadee Lane) for Feb. 18.
After the public hearings the board will have the ability to proceed and potentially approve the projects.