01/28/2007

Editorial

Rodgers upholds Acme's right to shape own future

It was a bedrock question — are local master plans, zoning amendments and codes worth the paper they're printed on?

Meijer Inc., which wanted to build its planned Acme Township superstore its way or no way, said no.

Acme officials, elected to ensure new development matches residents' vision for their hometown, said yes.

This time, Acme won. But the fight is likely far from over.

Thirteenth Circuit Court Judge Philip Rodgers earlier this month ruled that the township does, indeed, have the legal authority to attach conditions to a special land-use permit Meijer sought for a 230,000-square-foot superstore at M-72 and Lautner Road.

Specifically, Rodgers said the township could require Meijer to find a new location for a planned convenience store and gas station and build raised and demarcated walkways within the project to help pedestrian movement between the Meijer store and an additional 100,000 feet of future retail space planned for the site.

The board has also required Meijer, as Acme Supervisor Bill Kurtz puts it, to "evaluate — and deal with — the impact to our roads from all this regional traffic” the store will produce.

Last spring the board attached other conditions as well, such as restricting hours of operation to 6 a.m. to midnight, requiring a brick facade and constructing sub-surface stormwater storage.

After the board dropped those conditions in December the gas station, sidewalks and traffic were all that was left. But Meijer said all or nothing. "This ruling today has really prohibited us from moving forward,” a company spokeswoman said.

The company immediately said it would take the case to the state Court of Appeals.

While this has been primarily Acme's fight over the past two years, there is plenty at stake here for every other Michigan community that hopes to avoid the worst excesses of the big-box genre — acres of parking lot, loss of the night sky, traffic headaches, stormwater runoff and development totally out of scale for the site and the community.

The only tools those communities have are their master plans and zoning rules, which made Rodgers' ruling all the more important. Local control must matter, and if it does, local zoning and master plans must have some sway. The value of an existing property cannot be compromised by what the next guy wants; the people in place matter, and have rights.

That the fight in Acme has been reduced to where Meijer can build a gas station and whether it has to put in a couple of raised sidewalks, however, is already proof that communities are fighting, at best, a rear guard action.

What Michigan needs now is a powerful endorsement of Rodgers' ruling by the Court of Appeals, one that will restore the balance between the right of a community to direct new development and the right of a property owner to build to suit his or her own needs.

For Meijer, the fight is the same fight, every time — all or nothing. Like all other big-box retailers the company has a single model and it builds it over and over. Any change, even something as piddling as elevated sidewalks, is a change, and change cannot be allowed.

After Rodgers' ruling, company officials said Meijer is adverse to making significant changes to its general store model. That's an understatement. In fact, it is adverse to making any changes at all, for fear that it may have to make more the next time. Chaos!

As a Meijer rep said: Customers want the store they are accustomed to.

From a public relations angle, Meijer has certainly proven to be anything but neighborly.

According to Kurtz, Meijer has filed seven lawsuits against the township, board members have twice been sued personally and Meijer recently tried to subpoena board members' personal computers. They've been through the wringer.

It's war, and Michigan communities need help from the courts to level the playing field again; perhaps the Acme case will be the vehicle to do just that.