Last fall Genoa Township hosted an open house to solicit public comment on its master plan.
One segment asked what kind of “gateway” we would like for the entrances to our township to solidify the township’s identity in visitors’ minds. The options were a piece of art, a building, a banner, a street, lighting, or landscaping.
I don’t remember which one I selected, but I know for sure none of the options was an 86-foot-high smokestack belching noxious odors and carcinogens.
And for good reason. That doesn’t fit with the vision laid out in the master plan for the area right next door to the plant. The existing master plan says the west Grand River area should be a regional retail and commercial area that would create a strong sense of community identity for Genoa. It would include shopping and restaurants.
Yet less than a month earlier, the Genoa Township Planning Commission had approved a zoning change that would allow an asphalt plant to be built in an area right next door to the envisioned regional retail and commercial area.
How could the planning commission have made such an oversight? Did it forget to compare the zoning request with what’s in its own master plan?
Genoa Township residents concerned about their community have found other oversights by the planning commission. These include:
• Wetlands on the site of the property may be subject to state regulation. But no delineation of the wetlands has been carried out as required by Part 303 of the Natural Resources Environmental Protection Act and no assessment made of the plant’s impact on them. The township has an ordinance regulating wetlands of at least 2 acres, but no determination has been made of the size of these wetlands. As they are located within 500 feet of surface water, they would fall under state regulation regardless of their size. But this issue is barely mentioned in the environmental impact statement.
• The plant plans to discharge groundwater from the site into the wetlands, and that requires a state permit — a Michigan Industrial Stormwater permit No. MIS110000. But no permit has been issued to allow the discharge of groundwater from the site into the wetlands.
• The environmental impact statement submitted in connection with the zoning is inadequate and fails to address both those issues in the necessary depth.
• The proposed plant violates the purpose of the master plan enterprise. As the existing master plan states, its purpose is to ensure a “logical development pattern while maintaining community character and protecting natural resources. … (and to) ensure that Genoa Township remains a desirable community in which to live, work, or visit.” Nothing about the 86-foot tall smokestack emitting toxins will improve the quality of life in Genoa Township. Nothing is logical about putting this plant next to what is planned as a regional shopping and business center.
• The proposed plant is not an improvement over the existing use, despite the comments of one planning commissioner and the township supervisor. What’s there now isn’t pretty, but it doesn’t stink, doesn’t emit toxins into the air, and doesn’t cause air pollution that will drop into our lakes.
• The existing use may be causing groundwater pollution, according to one planning commissioner. If so, why hasn’t this been addressed? Shouldn’t the township require it to be cleaned up before another development takes place?
The township board has the chance to fix these oversights on Feb. 7 when it can reject the rezoning for the plant.
As the master plan says, “Poor planning decisions are difficult to eliminate, most linger forever. The master plan can be viewed as a community blueprint for the future, a mechanism to help ensure each decision fits as part of the whole.”
The Genoa Township board should heed the guidance of its own master plan and recognize that this plant does not fit as part of the whole.
