Public Input Gathered for Park at Former Psychiatric Hospital Site

officials, residents and a consulting firm will meet today to discuss three possible master plans regarding the .

The township held an open house at the township hall from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday to gather public input on what to do with the 350 acres, which include the buildings of the former Northville Psychiatric Hospital.

On display at the session were three possible plans, which could separately be described as commercial park uses (ball fields, water parks, etc.), the “leave alone” plan (removing the buildings and leaving most of the property wild) and nature center (creating paths, displays and sections used for environmentally-themed learning areas.)

Dozens of residents attended the open house, hosted by the township’s Community Development department and Ann Arbor-based Stantec, the company hired by the township to handle the planning process. Stantec employees mingled with residents to discuss the three master plan ideas.

A few neighbors of the now-fenced-in acreage attended the meeting to ensure their property wouldn’t be affected. Gary Legel, a 71-year-old resident, said he wanted to make sure the township doesn’t open Winchester Drive. His house is just a couple doors down from the dead-end into the property.

“We like our buffer zone,” Legel said.

Others brought strong opinions about what should be available and what shouldn’t. Married couple Kevin Florey and Kim Ayers said they favor more passive recreation ideas than more soccer fields. 

“I think it’s great that they’re getting community input. I think we’d like to have something to offer everyone,” said Florey, a runner who has competed in the Boston Marathon. “I felt strongly about the ability to create natural, unstructured space, to get closer to nature. Maybe we could also find ways to link the parks, such as Hines and Mayberry.”

The township started this marketing push in February with the hire of Stantec, which promised to bring community input into the planning process for what to do with the land. Since then, the company has created a brand for the effort, Twenty21 (essentially, this plan should start coming together in 10 years) and helped the township form the 35-member Green Ribbon Committee, comprised of residents and business owners who showed a great interest in the creation of a new park.

Another Stantec move was to create ways other residents can contribute to the plan. Along with meetings such as the one held Thursday, two online surveys were created on the township’s website. Already, the township has received 1,000 survey responses, said Stantec Senior Project Manager Mark Pascoe.

First thing today, Stantec is meeting with township officials to discuss the input provided at the Thursday meeting, Pascoe said. Right after that, the company will meet with the Green Ribbon committee again.

Jennifer Frey, director of community development for the township, said the next step after the meetings will be distilling some of the input and presenting an update to the Board of Trustees at its Thursday night meeting. No decision will be made, she said.

Pascoe said in the next few months, all the public and township staff input will be condensed into three specific plans for the site that can be weighed and deliberated by all. A decision on which of these plans to pick probably won’t come until November, he said.

Alongside this master plan debate will be another decision about the property. The Environmental Protection Agency agreed last week to give the township to clean up some of the areas polluted by the use in previous years by the hospital. The township will chip in another $40,000, Pascoe said.

This money is just a drop in the bucket of the estimated $17 million likely needed to clean up various polluted areas of the site, including a few underground storage tanks (USTs), oil fields and asbestos in the buildings, he said. However, this will be the first round of public cleanup dollars sought, he said.

“We plan to put together a request from the EPA for another $1 million, and more after that. We’re starting small now,” Pascoe said.

He said his company will meet with the township on June 15 to discuss priorities of where to put the $240,000.

“The property is closed to the public, and we know the township wants to open up some of the property. Maybe we can put the money toward removing the perimeter fence and just fencing off contaminated areas, allowing access to the rest,” Pascoe said.

A decision on what to do with the EPA grant should be made by July 8, he said.

The township’s informational site for the Twenty21 project can be found here.