Residents want input on private road, driveway laws

It’s been a year since roughly 40 residents packed Thomson Town Hall to comment on two proposed township ordinances regarding private roads and driveways. Many speakers provided constructive criticism, while others outright rejected the attempt to set standards for shared private roads and driveways.

Although township attorney David Pritchett told people they would fine-tune the ordinances and hold another meeting in a while, there have been no meeting notices or new draft ordinances posted on the website. Nor have any of the people that volunteered to help rewrite the ordinances been contacted.

Thus, township resident Ron Wahlsten made a motion last Thursday, Feb. 15 to form a citizen committee to work with the board to write the ordinance.

He proposed that affected landowners be included, along with fellow resident Travis Davidsavor, a civil engineer who has written ordinances for clients and volunteered then and now to provide input on the process.

“I don’t know if we should make a motion to do that, or how to get that to happen?” Wahlsten said.

Township board chair Ruth Janke referred his question to Pritchett, who said there were delays because of staff turnovers, but he and engineer Josh Evans are working on the ordinances and will likely be ready to bring revisions back to the board within a week or two.

Didn’t the previous township engineer have the ordinances mostly ready, Janke asked.

“There were people that own property on some of the roads that were considered private and needed improvement,” Wahlsten replied. “They would have had to put in a whole new road in order to sell their property [in the future]. We just want to make sure that that doesn’t happen to anybody.”

During last year’s discussions, township officials said one thing the changes would ensure is that firetrucks and other public safety vehicles could gain access to homes on a shared road or driveway. At the time, Davidsavor questioned that assertion: if it were truly better access for fire, ambulance and police, the resolutions should also apply to individual roads and driveways, he said.

Other points offered by the engineer included words like “neat” or “workmanlike fashion” in the ordinance were undefined, as well as costs of review by the town engineer, town attorney and other consultants to be paid by the applicant were not insignificant.

“What we’re looking for is an ordinance that addresses concerns, yet isn’t overly burdensome and yet solves some of the issues that have come up year after year,” Pritchett said.

Township board members decided to wait until they get the new drafts and then set up some kind of committee and/or public meeting or meetings.

The township attorney suggested he, the city engineer and zoning officer could coordinate meetings in a less formal setting. Township zoning officer Dan Stangle wasn’t present Thursday.

Pritchett said he would prefer not to post the new draft on the website, “but we can certainly make it available to anyone who’s interested, or whoever comes to a work session when we discuss it.”

He did not think the draft would be available at the township’s annual meeting on March 12.