Bloomfield Township forms new committee to tackle neighborhood road concerns

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP — Bloomfield Township is taking matters into its own hands to try to fix the township’s deteriorating subdivision roads.

“Many of our roads are a mess, to the point where I think they are in critical condition,” Township Supervisor Mike McCready said. “We’ve been holding them together by continuously filling these potholes and it’s just a temporary fix. They are getting bigger and bigger and these roads need to be reconstructed.”

Many residents are concerned about the condition of their neighborhood roads and have asked township officials about making improvements to them.

“We’ve had a lot of comments about the roads from residents,” McCready confirmed. “They come in, right now, regularly, because of the poor condition and poor upkeep of our roads, in the sense of paving, repaving and recovering.”

Most roads in the township’s subdivisions are considerably older than the typical 20-year  lifespan of a road.

“How many times can you patch a road? They are way past their useful life,” McCready said. “Some of these roads are 40-60 years old.”

The problem, according to McCready, is there isn’t enough money available for the township to provide a long-lasting fix.

“There apparently isn’t any money put aside to fix these roads, so we have to look deeper into this to figure out what it is we need to do to get these roads back in drivable and acceptable condition,” McCready said.

In 1951, lawmakers adopted Public Act 51, which created the Michigan Transportation Fund and established the distribution of funds — from gas taxes and vehicle registration fees — for the maintenance of subdivision roads and major thoroughfares across the state.

In the late 1960s, at the request of the township, Public Act 51 was adjusted to allow the township to enter into a contract with Oakland County to take over the surface maintenance of its own subdivision roads with a “special one-mil millage,” according to the township’s website. Bloomfield Township is currently the only township in the state that directly provides road maintenance to its residents, township officials said.

The township currently levies 0.699 mills of the approved 1 mill, after the Headlee and Proposal A rollbacks. A homeowner with a taxable value of $200,000 pays $138 a year — according to the township’s website — which goes toward plowing, salting, sweeping and patching more than 213 miles of concrete, asphalt and gravel subdivision roads, along with the grading and dust control of 30 miles of gravel roads.

The millage, according to officials, was never intended to cover major projects like road replacement or reconstruction or the paving of gravel roads. And to make matters worse, the township can’t use PA 51 state funding to provide for their improvement, because subdivision roads do not provide a thoroughfare for general traffic.

“There just hasn’t been any good planning and money put aside to take care of our roads,” he said. “And if we are relying on Act 51, it just doesn’t get into the neighborhoods. It stops at the main roads.”

In the meantime, the township has had to create special assessment districts, which puts the responsibility of subdivision road replacement or reconstruction projects on the homeowners in each neighborhood.

“We’ve been doing special assessment districts with our neighborhoods, and the assessment per household we’re seeing range anywhere from $25,000 to $60,000, depending on the degree of work that needs to occur, and then it’s financed over 15 years, which only adds more to the cost because you have interest on top of it,” McCready explained.

In response, McCready and Planning Commission Chair Jeff Salz came up with the idea to establish a 10-member committee to look into the township’s road situation.

“We’ve been talking about doing something, a clean-slate type of approach, where nothing is off the table. Every comment, every suggestion, would be addressed to find new and creative ways to address the problem of local roads — we’re talking about subdivision roads, basically,” said Salz.

Trustee Valerie Murray said the committee sounds like a great idea.

“As someone who got my own subdivision roads paved the hard way, I appreciate it,” Murray said. “I think it’s a great idea.”

The committee will include around 10 people — township officials and residents from various neighborhoods.

“We want to get them engaged so they can learn about why we are in this situation and start kind of brainstorming on ideas of what it is we can do to help alleviate, if not resolve, the issue,” McCready explained.

“I think our community will be passionate about it (with) everything we’ve gone through with these SADs (special assessment districts) and potholes, and right now the emails are coming in constantly. It’s a shame we’re in this situation.”

The committee will also communicate directly with the leaders of the township’s various homeowners associations so that all residents will be informed.

“There’s nothing to hide here. We need everybody to know what’s going on with these roads because we’re at a critical point,” added McCready.

Homeowners interested in getting more information about a special assessment district can contact the township’s assessing department at (248) 433-7710.