The Dorr Township Board Thursday evening accepted the recommendation of the Planning Commission to approved request for a planned unit development (PUD) for the Freedom Ranch on Hillcrest Drive.
There was some opposition expressed during deliberations, suggestions that the Freedom Ranch project opens up a dead end street and will result in much more traffic.
Freedom Ranch is the intention of a couple of gentlemen who want to establish a site for therapy with horses for female teens who suffer from eating disorders. Developers told the Planning Commission and Township Board the facility will be much like a residential summer camp and the PUD essentially permits the presence of horses.
Supervisor Jeff Miling said, “I’d rather look out my back door and see horses, not houses.”
There are plans for installing three buildings on the nine-acre site, one for housing the horses.
In other business at Thursday night’s meeting, the Township Board:
- Was told by deputy Supervisor Jim Martin that about $350,000 was spent locally last year for road projects and next on the agenda is a new culvert on 24th Street north of 142nd Avenue with cost sharing with Salem Township.
- Learned from Clerk Debbie Sewers that she and Treasurer Laurie Perry toured the Leighton-Dorr Sewer plant and declared, “I’ve never seen a sewer plant so clean.”
- Was told by Amanda Winters of the Parks Commission that a “Christmas in the Park celebration is scheduled for Dec. 3.
- Approved Miling’s appointment of Tim Coles to the Downtown Development Authority Board, succeeding Ernie Gills, who has sold AJ’s Bar & Grill and moved out of Dorr.
- Defeated a proposed ordinance prohibiting engine compression braking (“Jake Breaking”) because it would be too difficult to enforce. “I don’t think we need this… we have a hard enough time enforcing the laws we already have,” commented Trustee Chandler Stanton.
- Decided against taking any action on a complaint from Scott Calkins about the intersection of Cedar Street and 142nd Avenue in the downtown. Calkins wanted to have the one way changed back to two-way.
