Lot split approved for Doyle Center

A new clustered 10-lot residential development on the site of Bloomfield Hills School's Doyle Center, to be called Brookside Village, received unanimous approval by the Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees at their meeting on Wednesday, September 12.

Township planning, building and ordinance director Patti Voelker explained that there was a request made by Bloomfield Hills Schools' Superintendent Dr. Robert Glass to subdivide the Wing Lake School, 7273 Wing Lake Road, known as the Doyle Center, in order to create a new single family residential development named Brookside Village.

“The applicant for the Brookside Village development, NVTN Acquisition LLC, is seeking to develop 7.25 acres for 10 single family residential lots. The remaining 10.45 acres will maintain the existing school administration building,” she explained, which makes it compliant, as schools must sit on at least 10 acres. “In a consent judgement dated December 19, 2017, the developer was granted the ability to submit for site plan approval under the open space preservation provisions of the zoning ordinance.”

The consent judgement was a land swap by the developer and the school district for land on Franklin Road in the township adjacent to the E.L. Johnson Nature Center.

Voelker noted that in addition to the main school building and parking areas, the campus also includes athletic fields, a large wooded area to the northeast, a wetland and watercourse, and a pedestrian pathway connecting to the Birmingham Farms subdivision to the east. The acreage will be maintained as a park after the parking lot is modified and a shared drive is created. The Doyle Center will have 134 parking spaces, with she said complies with the ordinance and provides enough spaces and for traffic circulation.

“The district feels there is enough parking for activities at the center,” she said.

She explained that the open space preservation option ordinance was created in 2002, and allows residences to be clustered with at least 50 percent of the site to remain open space, and natural features to be preserved.

“Of the 7.25 acres, 3.63 will be open spaces, permanently,” Voelker said, with 10 lots identified. She said wetlands flow on the property from north to south, and the township's wetland mitigation board had reviewed and approved it.

Developer Terry Nosan explained the homes will be a mix of single story and two-stories, with two-story homes approximately 3,000 square feet, and one-story ranch homes about 2,500 square feet in size.

“With these developments, there's a sensitivity to tree removal and neighbors,” he said.

“This is the first time I've seen a development come before the board where you listened, the school board listened, and you gave us a park,” said trustee Dani Walsh. “As someone who went to that school as a child, who still goes to that park, you preserved the nature center and this park. Everybody figured out how to make this perfect.”

Trustees approved the lot split and site plan, 6-0, with trustee Michael Schostak absent.