Rezoning halted by residents' efforts

October 10, 2005 —

Citing fears of increased crime and the destruction of their neighborhood, Stephen J. Yanca, professor of social work at SVSU, and two other Kochville Township residents have halted the rezoning of land at the southwest corner of Pierce and Davis roads from single-family residential to mixed-use development. The move is a blow to local investors and the Rochester Hills-based Campus Village.

Yanca, David Sanchez, and Gary Hornfeld, who all reside near the recently rezoned 13.98 acres, filed a notice of intent to petition for a referendum, which if successful, will put the rezoning question before Kochville Township residents. The expansion of the Campus Village project, which was scheduled to begin in 2006 but still needed to have its site plan reviewed prior to construction, is now on an indefinite hiatus pending the outcome of the referendum.

The petitioners need to gather signatures from 15 percent of the number of Township voters in the last gubernatorial election in 2002 - 129 signatures out of 857 voters - by Tuesday, Oct. 25, thirty days after the publishing of the interim zoning ordinance amendment for the project, in order to qualify for a 2006 ballot in either February or May. The signatures will then be validated by Township Clerk George A. Schenpf, who voted in favor of the rezoning.

The signatures will be easy to come by, said Yanca, who has lived on Davis Road for 27 years.

"We're in the process of collecting as many signatures as we can," he said. "We're not worried about it. And we don't think we're going to have much of a problem getting people's vote, either."

Kochville Township Supervisor Kenneth P. Bayne is frustrated at what the further delay of the rezoning process will entail for the community.

"The rezoning was consistent with the master plan, which is a community based document," Bayne said, questioning where the petitioning residents were when the Township spent a year on the creation of the master plan.

Bayne also stated that the land will be rezoned, regardless of the referendum. If the issue gets on a ballot and is rejected by voters, local investor John Leuenberger will sue, and, Bayne said, ultimately the courts will rezone the land in order to settle the case.

Yanca said he feels Leuenberger is using the lawsuit to threaten voters.

"I'm really offended - I hope other people are as offended as I am - that people are using a threat of a lawsuit to try to intimidate voters," he said. "I don't think that is something Americans are going to stand for."

He added that if residents end up approving the rezoning, then there will not be any more opposition from their side.

"We're willing to live with whatever the results are," he said. "We're not going to threaten lawsuits. If the people say 'put it in,' then we'll live with it. The other side seems to be ready to go to court. We're ready to live with the will of the people."

Master plan

For Bayne, the rezoning debate comes down to the efficiency of the Township's master plan.

"When three couples in the community can undermine the master plan, the work of the Board and the Planning Commission, and the property rights of the developers, obviously there's a flaw in the system," Bayne said.

"When the leadership remains consistent with the master plan, approves rezoning based on that master plan, there shouldn't be any doubt as to the decision that was made."

Yanca said the master plan should not be given too much consideration.

"That master plan was put into place by people who are not elected, for the most part," he argued. "They were mainly officials who were selected by the supervisor. What does that tell you? They didn't even follow their own survey that they did."

Township survey

Throughout the rezoning process, residents opposed to the project cited a survey mailed to 784 residents (which 324, or 41 percent, responded to) which inquired about the future direction of Kochville Township. A copy of the survey results obtained by the Vanguard show that only 19 percent of respondents agreed that additional rental housing is needed in the Township.

"When you look at researchers, if they got a 41 percent response on a mailing, they're going to claim a fairly high level of significance," Yanca said. He added that with such a high response rate, he felt it was fair to assume most of the rest of the Township thinks along the same lines.

However, Bayne defended the Board's decision, believing that the survey's results are not directly applicable to the Campus Village project.

"Do residents want rental housing?" he asked. "Probably not. Do they want student housing? I believe they do."

Yanca said if the land was rezoned to allow for several houses for student living, there would not be as much resident opposition to the project. However, he said he felt it was clear residents do not want commercial development in a residential section of the Township.

Bayne cited a question from the survey as justification for the rezoning, in which 81 percent of the respondents stated that the success of SVSU is important to the Township. Residents argued that since the survey stated 77 percent of respondents agreed commercial development should be restricted to the Bay and Tittabawassee corridor, and roads adjacent to them, the project is against the wishes of the community. Bayne, however, saw this as further justification for the project.

"Isn't Pierce Road adjacent to Bay Road?" Bayne asked.

Yanca is confident for a victory.

"I don't think there's a judge around who is going to overturn a referendum," he said. "Especially if the numbers even come close to reflecting what their own survey said, a judge isn't going to overturn that."

'Student ghetto'

Bayne is particularly appalled by the comments made by Yanca, calling the project a "student ghetto."

"Students are people's children, not animals," Bayne said, adding that he takes Yanca's "ghetto" comments personally. "To continually ridicule (students) as adolescents doesn't convey a supportive message to these adults that they will have a meaningful place in society."

Yanca, who did express some slight regret in the use of the term, still did not back away from his comments.

"It was intended to be inflammatory," he said. "It was intended to show the depth of how inflamed we are over what is being planned here."

He also emphasized that there are several meanings to the word "ghetto," and clarified which he was intending to use.

"I intended that term to identify the concentration of a specific population in a small area," he explained. "If you want to know what it means, go to East Lansing and visit Cedar Village apartments. Or Central Michigan and Ferris, where they have high concentrations of students living off campus right near the university. Those are the places where trouble starts, because they aren't supervised."

Future implications

The lack of supervision is one main thing Yanca is concerned about. He explained that he and other residents were not opposed to the residential development on campus, because of the University's strict rules and procedures. And while he admitted that "90 to 95 percent" of students over in the Townhomes would not be causing any problems, he was concerned about the minority who will.

"If it occurs right across the road, there's not a darn thing (the University) can do about it," he said.

Bayne said he is not fearful of political backlash, including a potential recall effort from the rezoning ordeal, since he recognizes that such hazards come with the job.

"As long as we officials are doing our job within the framework of the law, following the desires and wishes of the majority of the community, we are doing our job," Bayne said.

Yanca, however, believes Bayne is not representing Kochville residents as he should be.

"The (developers) are not people who live in the Township for the most part," he explained. "For (Bayne) to be representing people who do not even live here against the people who do, makes me wonder what is going on."

Vanguard Editor-in-Chief Andy Hoag contributed to this story.