By Megan Kelley
Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
INDEPENDENCE TWP. — The Independence Township Board of Trustees approved the distribution of the 2035 Opportunities Master Plan as was recommended by the township planning commission, at its regular meeting on Sept. 24.
At its meeting on Aug. 8, the planning commission approved the recommendation to the township board for distribution of the plan.
To adopt a new master plan, the township is required to distribute the plan to all neighboring governments, Oakland County, the Southeastern Michigan Council of Governments, every public utility company, railroad and public transportation system registered with the township, the Road Commission of Oakland County and the Michigan Department of Transportation. All of these jurisdictions have 63 days to submit written comments. After those 63 days the township must hold at least one public hearing. Only after these steps can the board approve the plan.
Presenting the plan was Planning and Zoning Director Brian Oppmann as well as consultant Richard Carlisle from Carlisle/Wortman Associates.
“This was a pretty rigorous update,” Oppmann said. “We had a tremendous amount of public input, a survey was conducted (and) I don’t know that we’ve ever gotten so many responses from people, which was great and the website saw a tremendous amount of traffic.”
Carlisle spoke to give a brief comment on the changes made in the plan.
“This township has been guided by some basic policy premises for many many years. The sanctity of the water and the sewer district being one; the reality of having a major expressway run through us, the long term desire to preserve both the northwest and the northeast portions of the township in low density development, a couple of major economic corridors in Sashabaw Road and Dixie Highway, which the dynamics of those has obviously changed. We’re now back to a redevelopment mode in Dixie Highway with the recreation of the DDA (Downtown Development Authority),” said Carlisle. “So, while the master plan proposes some changes, it also maintains the basic premises of those kinds of policies that have served this community very well over the years.”
Also there to help present the master plan was Chairman of the Planning Commission, Bill Scarborough. Scarborough addressed the process the commission went through to update the plan and also reviewed some of the more significant changes to the plan.
“Our review has resulted in some minor, yet notable, changes in land use and one change which I consider significant in the implementation section. These changes are centered around a couple of basic principals; number one is promoting open space and preserving natural resources, number two is providing the possibility of residential development in the Sashabaw, Pine Knob sub(division) area and the M-14 northwest area,” Scarborough said. “It is our hope that this will accomplish the following: slow the spread of commercial office along Sashabaw and M-15, encourage re-purposing along Dixie Highway and infill development within the town center and the more land we have available for commercial and office outside of the town center and the Dixie Highway area, the more options we’re providing developers. Limiting options will encourage developments in already established commercial office districts.”
Other noteworthy changes include: providing HOAs with additional support, emphasis on the concept of redevelopment on Dixie Highway, adding language to emphasis preservation of open space and protection of natural resources, additional language for “single-family attached/detached” to encourage residential uses in certain districts and a new land use category of “office service/residential.”
“In my opinion, the most significant changes begin on page 122 where we added an implementation matrix. We felt the master plan did an excellent job of laying out our goals and objectives in our future land use but left the question of how we get there unanswered,” said Scarborough. “This matrix is an attempt to establish more specific tasks that will lead us in obtaining these objectives. Once adopted, it is our intent to target specific objectives to get accomplished in the immediate future. It is also our intent to review this matrix periodically to make sure that these tasks are not forgotten and that we are in fact making progress.”
The township Board of Trustees voted 6-0 to approve the distribution of the plan. Trustee Terri Nallamothu was absent from the meeting.
The full master plan document can be viewed online at 2022masterplanupdate-oakgov.hub.arcgis.com.