June 12th, 2007

It was a packed house last night for the first item on the agenda at the Planning Commission Meeting. Item A, involved the tear down and redevelopment of two commercial buildings and one residential building located in the Central Business District. The two commercial buildings are located at 520 and 528 North Main Street. One of the buildings is an old, non-used, and somewhat of an eye-sore auto mechanic shop. The other commercial building is the headquarters of Gleeson Building Company, the company who currently owns the property and is behind the new plan. The residential building in question is a rental property located at 120 East Farnum. The rental property sits directly behind the two commercial buildings. The proposed project would replace the existing structures with a three story mixed-use building with a built-in parking structure. The building design was a mixture of brick and pre-cast textured materials. The computerized designs showed an impressive building that would be a vast improvement over present structures that currently exist. Its design is meant to attract premium office or high-end professional office tenants to Royal Oak.

Upon public comment, there was a bevy of angry residents. The Vice President of the South Royal Oak Homeowners Group and other residents in the community cried out that the development was too large and it encroached on their neighborhood. Many of the residents who made public comment cited various personal reasons including that the new tenants in the proposed building would add too much traffic to Farnum.

Many of the residents who spoke during public comment were renters concerned with how the construction would affect their gardens or that they felt a parking structure could potentially increase car theft.

After a lengthy discussion among the Planning Commission, the commission requested that the Gleeson Building Company meet with the residents and try to come back with a plan that did not encroach upon the neighborhood. One Planning Commissioner, Tom Hallock, was concerned that if the planning commission decided to take residential property and turn it into commercial property than more people in the city will want to do the same thing. He then went on to say that if the planning commission did not grant it to others, then there could be grounds for a lawsuit against the city. Mayor Ellison was vocal to the point that he did appreciate the building and thought that it was good; however, he wants to see the development not intrude into the residential neighborhood.

Some of the residents arguments were valid and should be studied and taken seriously. However, I felt many of their concerns can be addressed through some minor revisions or city and petitioner planning. Measures such adding a no right turn sign outside of the proposed parking structure could prevent things like the possibility of additional traffic to a residential neighborhood. I feel that the positives of this project largely outweigh any of the negatives and this is an example of the type of building that we need our City to get behind and support. Bringing a commercial office building into an area that borders a residential area is by far the best transitional type of structure to place in an area like this. I say this with confidence, because I live in an area like this, my backyard boarders Woodward Avenue. An office building with operational hours that would range from 8am to 5pm is the least obstructive type of building to a residential neighborhood. It will provide much less interference than a new restaurant or the reopening of the former auto mechanic shop that was previously opened 24 hours a day.

I think that the decision to table the matter may stunt the future of this very project and could very well stunt other potential builders from wanting to build here in Royal Oak. The Gleeson Building Company, a Royal Oak hometown firm, who wants to reinvest back into the city and wants to make a commitment to help bring other businesses here to Royal Oak will need to reevaluate their situation and decide if it is worth it for them to modify their plans. If they do, it will take a lot help from the city if a plan like this will ever come to fruition.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 8:12 pm and is filed under Plan Commission. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.