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Council lifts PUD moratorium, fills planning-commission vacancies to clear backlog
Summary
Walled Lake council voted to remove a PUD moratorium and confirmed several mayoral planning-commission nominees so the commission can regain quorum and process development applications, after the school superintendent asked for an exemption for a pre-moratorium filing.
The Walled Lake City Council voted to remove its planned-unit-development (PUD) moratorium and moved to restore the planning commission’s quorum by confirming multiple mayoral nominees on Tuesday night.
The council’s action followed public comment from Michael Lyons, superintendent of Walled Lake Consolidated School District, who told the council the development at issue had been filed before the city’s 90-day PUD moratorium and urged an exemption. Lyons said the project would convert open space into new housing, help downtown vibrancy and bring an estimated $300,000 in annual tax revenue to Walled Lake.
The city attorney told the council the moratorium and the pending PUD raised procedural questions and that council retained discretion to allow a pending application to proceed. After discussion, a council member moved to remove the moratorium “in its entirety”; a second was recorded and the motion carried.
Council members then moved to address a separate but related bottleneck: the planning commission lacked a quorum, preventing it from acting on land-use applications. The mayor nominated several residents to fill vacancies, and council confirmed several over the course of the meeting. Lena Bashy was introduced at the podium and appointed to the planning commission. Council also confirmed appointments for Lauren Martin and Anthony Swiatek and accepted a resignation that allowed Russ Schensing to be appointed to maintain the commission’s membership.
Staff and council emphasized that, even with the moratorium lifted, applications often must still go through the planning commission review with public notice and potential additional design-standard amendments. Council members stressed the planning commission must have a quorum to continue processing projects and discussed requirements for interviewing future nominees to ensure preparedness.
Next steps: applicants scheduled for planning-commission review will proceed to that body now that the moratorium has been removed and seats have been filled; any application-specific outcomes will depend on subsequent planning-commission hearings and required public-notice processes.
