Bloomfield planners nix development support

By Dana Casadei

The room seemed to be waiting with bated breath as the roll call played out for whether or not the Bloomfield Township Planning Commission was going to give their recommendation for the Hamlet at Bloomfield Manor development to move forward to the board of trustees, which they ultimately did not. 

“I’m persuaded that it isn’t right for this community and this is where I’m going to stand,” said John Kelly, planning commission member.

Kelly was one of four votes to approve the motion to deny the recommendation, with chairman Richard Atto being the lone vote against it because he favored giving their recommendation for the development.

With a packed room in attendance it was made clear that residents weren’t in favor of this development at 350 W. Big Beaver Road, The Hamlet at Bloomfield Manor, with nearly 20 people coming forward to speak during public comments, which lasted nearly an hour. 

All who spoke were against the development for a variety of reasons. A few common themes were if existing dirt roads would be paved, the developer confirmed that it would not; a water main installation that would be needed; and lastly, how they felt this development would cause the community to lose its “up north” like character with its dirt roads and large nature areas.

“Please walk down Manor Road and think about what kind of impact this will have,” one resident said. 

As far as the site plan itself goes, it was nearly two years in the making, according to developer Howard Fingeroot, managing partner of Sylvan Crest Partners.

When he and his team originally came to the township last March they proposed nine homes on the three parcels with no open space, but after meeting with township staff they were told to consider a few other options, including the township’s open space preservation option of the zoning ordinance. 

Adopted by Bloomfield Township in 2002, the open space preservation option was created to offer an open space preservation option that results in a residential cluster development with at least 50 percent open space. The objectives of the open space preservation provisions are to cluster new homes on a portion of the land and then to surround the home sites with permanently preserved open space, without allowing more homes to be

built than allowed under more traditional methods.

Fingeroot and team completed a parallel plan to their original one for the development using the open space preservation option. The parallel plan reduced the total number of houses down to six clustered houses in a cul-de-sac on the three parcels instead of eight. These six home sites would have been located to provide a buffer from Big Beaver Road and Manor Park, and would have limited impacts to the wetland areas along a proposed private drive that ended in the cul-de-sac. The submitted plan indicated a total land area of 7.33 acres with the open space preservation plan designed to provide 3.68 acres of open space, therefore, meeting the conditions of having at least 50 percent of the area be open space. 

In May, Fingeroot and team met with residents of the Bloomfield Manor Home Owners Association and those from Shepardbush St. in Birmingham, and came away with a list of concerns from them about the development, many of which were mentioned during the planning commission meeting.

“This is such an upsetting topic for me. Anyone I’ve spoken to is not ok with this large development that’s happening on this piece of land,” one resident said. “We’ve been petitioning against this, we’re not happy with it, and I would hope you guys would take into consideration what the neighborhood wants and what our community as a whole wants. Not what a developer wants – to come in and make money on our land.”

Residents top concerns were an increase in residential traffic, construction traffic, the construction timeline and landscape sequencing, tree prevention and replacement, the water main installation, monument signage and street lighting (the developers decided not to do this after this meeting due to criticism from the residents), questions were raised about architectural controls and review procedures, if those in the Hamlet would be in a separate HOA from theirs, a deed restriction from the 1915 Bloomfield Manor plat, and concerns surrounding the increase from three lots to six. 

Nikki Jeffries, director of development at Sylvan Crest, explained that the township can not enforce private deed restrictions and that the property is zoned R-3, which would allow for up to eight lots on the space. 

A few residents expressed they would have been fine with this development if they had stuck to one home per parcel so there would have only been three homes built, but the fact that their proposed plan would be adding six houses did not sit well with many.

They were primarily worried that if the township allowed this development Bloomfield Manor that it would set a precedent for the rest of the township, and would lead to more of this throughout the community. One said that this would be like opening up Pandora’s Box.

Those on the planning commission seemed conflicted about whether to approve a recommendation of the development or not. But the fear of losing the neighborhood’s character seemed to ultimately be the deciding favorite for Kelly and many of the other planning commission members. Multiple members felt, to put it simply, that this plan just wouldn’t be compatible with what’s already there.

“It’s a beautiful area, one of the prettiest in the township,” said Neal Barnett, planning commission member and Bloomfield Township trustee. “Certainly, the developer has his property rights and he knows what the proposals were presented to him as far as his options. It’s a very difficult decision. The developer has done everything that he needs to do with that property – the open space preservation act is provided, 50 percent protecting the properties and surrounding character of the property, but I am concerned about how it doesn’t protect the character of the neighborhood, to no fault of his. It’s just that if there are going to be six lots, it’s going to change. If there are going to be three lots, there’s less of an impact on the neighborhood.”

Ultimately, the majority of the planning commission agreed with what residents had to say. 

They stated in their motion to deny the recommendation that it was due to the development not being harmonious or keeping with the neighborhood, denying it based on the current proposals.