Developer, school district swap acreage

Bloomfield Township trustees on Monday, November 13, unanimously approved a consent judgement for a land swap between a local developer, Terry Nosan, for property his company had purchased on Franklin Road to develop, and a little over eight acres the Bloomfield Hills School district owns at their administrative headquarters on Wing Lake Road, in order to satisfy a lawsuit filed by Nosan Ventures against the township for voting against preliminary plat approval to replat the Franklin Road property.

Township attorney Bill Hampton explained that the township board had turned down a five-lot plat for property Nosan Ventures had purchased to develop just south of the E.L. Johnson Nature Preserve, which is owned by the school district. At the township’s public hearing, Bloomfield Hills’ superintendent Rob Glass spoke out against the development, concerned about the impact on the nature preserve.

“Nosan took out an appeal which is pending in circuit court,” he said. “School board representatives approached Nosan to do a land swap. We (the township) were not involved.”

In the land swap, Nosan Ventures would convey the 4.603 acres of land on Franklin Road to the school district in exchange for 8.04 acres of 18 acres of land the district owns by the Doyle Administration building at 7273 Wing Lake Road.

“Nosan will have 10-site condos at the the site, and the township wants it to be subject to the open land requirements, with two acres of heavily wooded land to remain,” Hampton said. From the school board, the township wants land on that site, “which is being used as a baseball field, nature walk, to always be used as a conservation area, and to sign a conservation easement. And we want an agreement for the land on Franklin Road that it would be merged with the Nature Center and never be developed.”

Hampton noted the land swap was a win-win for all parties, including the township. “There are eight acres that are not currently on the tax rolls that will be, and there will be further conservation,” he said.

The deal is still subject to approval from the school district.