Friendship Township Planning Commission
Special Meeting Thursday, March 10, 2005 7:00 PM
with Township Board

FTPC Donahey T Franklin J Gelb Kurburski D Simon F Troup B Trufant
Present x x x x x
Absent x x




FTB of T Major Scott Troup Van Divner Ward
Present x x x x x
Absent

County Planners
Max Putters, Planning Director
Brentt Michalek, Assistant Planning Director
Anamika Laad, Assistant Planner

Tammy Doernenburg, County Enforcement Officer
I. Call to order at 7:00 p.m.
II. Introduction and recognition of visitors: Tim Ward, Caroline Kurburski, Mary Whitmore
III. New Business:
A. The following Procedural Goals were discussed in an open format. This is a brief summary.
1. Inclusion of township representative during early meetings with applicant (developer) in order to comment on preliminary (rather than fully engineered) site plans, among other benefits.— Max Putters spoke about their process. It was agreed that a representative of the township could meet with county staff and the developer in the early stages. We as a township could suggest/require that plans come to the township informally first.
2. Automatic tabling of cases (similar to Bear Creek) to allow better timing of notification of neighbors and discussion at the township level.— Would probably want to set some policies about the types of cases we would want tabling action on, such as developments above a certain size, re-zonings, etc.
3. Making sure all documents and studies are complete before the final review process begins — The co. zoning ordinance will soon be re-worked. Environmental concerns, water issues, road/traffic issues among others need to be more clearly addressed. The Co. Planning Commission has said they want to enforce their 7-day policy on applications (in other words, ALL the required documents must be in Co. staff hands 7 days prior to a meeting to be placed on the agenda). We suggested that this should also be the case for each subsequent meeting of the county and for the township PC meetings too. An environmental advocate for the public is missing from the process. The developer pays people to give the results. That expert is not neutral, but beholden for his/her livelihood on the developers. Consider at County level doing escrow from developers (development above a certain size, or in sensitive/critical zones) that would pay an expert(s) hired by the County to make the studies required. (environmental/endangered species, traffic, water resources, soil analysis, drainage systems, etc.)
4. Ways to accomplish township goals within the county system—Questions were asked about the possibilities of having better open space incentives in the new zoning code. Also how to look at a bigger picture than one development, i.e. one area meshing with another vis á vis wildife corridors, ecosystems. Could the township be treated as a separate entity? No clear picture as to what will happen. Hopeful.
B. Status of enforcement for site condos were discussed by Tammy Doernenburg. She passed out a memo which was very specific as to what has and has not been done. County will enforce the requirement for a fire tank/pool/pond once 5 units have been reached if it is included in the plan which the county approves as a requirement. See her memo.
1. True North
2. Suarez
3. Cottrill
VI. RR2 to FF2 request was discussed. Max will move this forward. It was felt that at least one of the public hearings could be here in the twp.
VII. Adjourn at 9:20 p.m.

Cynthia Donahey