Post by Todd B on May 13, 2008 9:54:34 GMT -5
www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/NEWS01/222633408
Is a track and nature park right for Ida? Some say yes, some no
IDA TOWNSHIP - As is so often the case in Monroe County, a proposed use of land in Ida Township is dividing residents of this rural community.
Charles (Chuck) Mudge is no stranger to many residents in that area. He's the guy with the full-scale arenacross motorcycle racing track behind his Ida West Rd. home. Arenacross is the flying motocross event styled especially for races held in smaller arenas, like the former Toledo Sports Arena.
(See his current home track at this link. It will be in the upper left-hand section:
www.mapquest.com/maps/8935+Ida+West+Rd+mi+48140/#a/maps/l::8935+Ida+West+Rd:Ida:MI:48140-9777:US:41.910919:-83.578792:address:Monroe+County/m:hyb:12:41.905614:-83.58253:0::/io:0:::::f:EN:M:/e )
With five motorcycle-riding children between the ages of 6 and 17, the 1987 Monroe High graduate, Mr. Mudge - with a group of 16 other like-minded fathers from the area - created Southeast Michigan Motorsports LLC.
The group has optioned 100 acres of mixed use residential and agriculturally zoned property at the corner of Ida West and Wells Rds. with the intention of creating a sort of motocross/wildlife/hiking and biking park, complete with walking and golf cart trails.
"We're just a bunch of dads with kids," Mr. Mudge said. "We're a group of fathers with children who race motorcycles. Most of them are Ida residents."
The group's plan will be the subject of an Ida Township Planning Commission public hearing Tuesday on a permit to allow the various uses proposed on the property. The planning commission will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. in the community room at the township hall, 3016 Lewis Ave.
Some motivated residents in the area have begun a campaign to shut down the effort.
"Would you want that in your back yard?" asks Sally Schafer, who last weekend began circulating a petition for residents opposed to the proposal. "We have a group of concerned citizens within the Ida, Summerfield and Dundee township area - because the proposed site is very close to all three townships."
But it is Ida Township where the 14435 Ida West Rd. property sits, and therefore it will be a project under the auspices of the Ida Township planning and zoning parameters.
"It has to go through this process whether people are for it or against it," Supervisor Ron Iott said, adding that residents will be provided an opportunity to speak Tuesday.
"At the meeting, there will be public comment time," Mr. Iott said. "This hearing is just to let people know what has been requested."
The proposal itself is to build three motocross-style tracks within the 100 acre property. Two will be adult tracks, one for "advanced riders" and another for "more laid back, just want to have fun adult riders," Mr. Mudge said, adding that both tracks would be completely surrounded by existing woods on the property.
A third track for up-and-coming youth riders would be more centrally located on the land, but is proposed to be surrounded by a dirt berm that would be planted with trees in hopes of lessening sound and visibility.
But the motocross tracks aren't the only things to be added, Mr. Mudge insists. The plan also calls for a two to four acre swimming pond with volleyball courts and a gathering area for youths on summer break, 10 acres of Pheasants Forever habitat, a few acres of whitetail deer foraging area, wood duck, Canada geese and mallard nesting areas mixed among various wetlands on the property and a series of walking trails throughout.
"In our business plan, which we submitted to the township as part of this, it says we plan to give a key to the front gate to the schools in the area so they can use the area for field trips," Mr. Mudge said.
But the greater vision of the proposal has fallen in with an Ida Township rumor mill and Mr. Mudge says a smear campaign, if successful, will cheat residents out of a great resource for future generations.
"They've got us so beat up out here," he said, adding that even going into town for groceries has become an awkward and hostile affair because of misinformation being spread about the park his group wants to build.
"They've got us stereotyped as a motorcycle gang and that there will be people getting raped out there and it will be nothing but wild parties and craziness," Mr. Mudge said. "That's simply not the case."
Rather, he said, the venture spawned from the realization that it costs families upwards of $250 in gasoline to drive north to already-created motorcycle riding properties.
"We're just trying to make a place where kids can stay off the street and off drugs and do something that they're already doing, but in a safe and fun environment," Mr. Mudge said. "And for that, we're the worst people in Ida?"
Mrs. Schafer says Southeast Michigan Motorsports isn't being honest about what it wants to do on the property and that's the biggest problem.
"This is a commercial venture, which could conceivably attract hundreds, possibly thousands, of people six days a week," Mrs. Schafer read from a page attached to the petitions she's been circulating in the area.
Mr. Mudge claims the proposal is one weekday evening - after work - and weekends, not six days a week. The plan is to have the park open from April through October.
Citing articles in The Monroe Evening News in which Mr. Mudge has been featured because of his existing track, Mrs. Schafer quotes passages where Mr. Mudge has claimed he'd like to "do this for a living."
And although she denies personal knowledge to the contrary, Mrs. Schafer said she doubts that only 17 local families are behind the investment to create the proposed park.
"Who would spend $440,000 for the property alone? What type of family hobby could prompt people to invest that much? That flies in the face of common sense," she said, again alluding to local rumors that "outside" investors are backing the proposal.
It's a rumor Mr. Mudge said is hard to prove wrong.
"But it's just us," he said. "I've heard the rumor is that we've got 200 investors, including one from California and six silent partners who each kicked in $50,000 a piece. I wish that was the case. But it's just us, scratching and scraping together everything we can to make this happen for our kids."
It may be, says Ida West Rd. resident Regina Feldpausch, who has signed the petitions against the development, that Southeast Michigan Motorsports is considering the wrong property for their proposed park.
"It is too much too close to residents," she said. "If you go down the road and count the number of houses along there, there are over 75 homes, and I counted them. And that's not even going off any of the side roads or all the way around the section.
"That's a pretty intense residential area for Ida Township," Mrs. Feldpausch said, adding that she believes it to be the third densest residential area in Ida Township. "If we were a subdivision everyone would agree that, ‘Oh no, you can't put it by a subdivision.'
"Well, we are a sort of elongated subdivision. It's just too intense of a use near all those homes."
What do you say?
What: The Ida Township Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on an application from Southeast Michigan Motorsports LLC to open a private motorsports park and club on 100 acres off Ida West Rd.
When, where: 7 p.m. Tuesday in the township hall, 3016 Lewis Ave. Since the commission has not seen a site plan for the project, no action is expected, Clerk Donald Appleman said.
Is a track and nature park right for Ida? Some say yes, some no
IDA TOWNSHIP - As is so often the case in Monroe County, a proposed use of land in Ida Township is dividing residents of this rural community.Charles (Chuck) Mudge is no stranger to many residents in that area. He's the guy with the full-scale arenacross motorcycle racing track behind his Ida West Rd. home. Arenacross is the flying motocross event styled especially for races held in smaller arenas, like the former Toledo Sports Arena.
(See his current home track at this link. It will be in the upper left-hand section:
www.mapquest.com/maps/8935+Ida+West+Rd+mi+48140/#a/maps/l::8935+Ida+West+Rd:Ida:MI:48140-9777:US:41.910919:-83.578792:address:Monroe+County/m:hyb:12:41.905614:-83.58253:0::/io:0:::::f:EN:M:/e )
With five motorcycle-riding children between the ages of 6 and 17, the 1987 Monroe High graduate, Mr. Mudge - with a group of 16 other like-minded fathers from the area - created Southeast Michigan Motorsports LLC.
The group has optioned 100 acres of mixed use residential and agriculturally zoned property at the corner of Ida West and Wells Rds. with the intention of creating a sort of motocross/wildlife/hiking and biking park, complete with walking and golf cart trails.
"We're just a bunch of dads with kids," Mr. Mudge said. "We're a group of fathers with children who race motorcycles. Most of them are Ida residents."
The group's plan will be the subject of an Ida Township Planning Commission public hearing Tuesday on a permit to allow the various uses proposed on the property. The planning commission will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. in the community room at the township hall, 3016 Lewis Ave.
Some motivated residents in the area have begun a campaign to shut down the effort.
"Would you want that in your back yard?" asks Sally Schafer, who last weekend began circulating a petition for residents opposed to the proposal. "We have a group of concerned citizens within the Ida, Summerfield and Dundee township area - because the proposed site is very close to all three townships."
But it is Ida Township where the 14435 Ida West Rd. property sits, and therefore it will be a project under the auspices of the Ida Township planning and zoning parameters.
"It has to go through this process whether people are for it or against it," Supervisor Ron Iott said, adding that residents will be provided an opportunity to speak Tuesday.
"At the meeting, there will be public comment time," Mr. Iott said. "This hearing is just to let people know what has been requested."
The proposal itself is to build three motocross-style tracks within the 100 acre property. Two will be adult tracks, one for "advanced riders" and another for "more laid back, just want to have fun adult riders," Mr. Mudge said, adding that both tracks would be completely surrounded by existing woods on the property.
A third track for up-and-coming youth riders would be more centrally located on the land, but is proposed to be surrounded by a dirt berm that would be planted with trees in hopes of lessening sound and visibility.
But the motocross tracks aren't the only things to be added, Mr. Mudge insists. The plan also calls for a two to four acre swimming pond with volleyball courts and a gathering area for youths on summer break, 10 acres of Pheasants Forever habitat, a few acres of whitetail deer foraging area, wood duck, Canada geese and mallard nesting areas mixed among various wetlands on the property and a series of walking trails throughout.
"In our business plan, which we submitted to the township as part of this, it says we plan to give a key to the front gate to the schools in the area so they can use the area for field trips," Mr. Mudge said.
But the greater vision of the proposal has fallen in with an Ida Township rumor mill and Mr. Mudge says a smear campaign, if successful, will cheat residents out of a great resource for future generations.
"They've got us so beat up out here," he said, adding that even going into town for groceries has become an awkward and hostile affair because of misinformation being spread about the park his group wants to build.
"They've got us stereotyped as a motorcycle gang and that there will be people getting raped out there and it will be nothing but wild parties and craziness," Mr. Mudge said. "That's simply not the case."
Rather, he said, the venture spawned from the realization that it costs families upwards of $250 in gasoline to drive north to already-created motorcycle riding properties.
"We're just trying to make a place where kids can stay off the street and off drugs and do something that they're already doing, but in a safe and fun environment," Mr. Mudge said. "And for that, we're the worst people in Ida?"
Mrs. Schafer says Southeast Michigan Motorsports isn't being honest about what it wants to do on the property and that's the biggest problem.
"This is a commercial venture, which could conceivably attract hundreds, possibly thousands, of people six days a week," Mrs. Schafer read from a page attached to the petitions she's been circulating in the area.
Mr. Mudge claims the proposal is one weekday evening - after work - and weekends, not six days a week. The plan is to have the park open from April through October.
Citing articles in The Monroe Evening News in which Mr. Mudge has been featured because of his existing track, Mrs. Schafer quotes passages where Mr. Mudge has claimed he'd like to "do this for a living."
And although she denies personal knowledge to the contrary, Mrs. Schafer said she doubts that only 17 local families are behind the investment to create the proposed park.
"Who would spend $440,000 for the property alone? What type of family hobby could prompt people to invest that much? That flies in the face of common sense," she said, again alluding to local rumors that "outside" investors are backing the proposal.
It's a rumor Mr. Mudge said is hard to prove wrong.
"But it's just us," he said. "I've heard the rumor is that we've got 200 investors, including one from California and six silent partners who each kicked in $50,000 a piece. I wish that was the case. But it's just us, scratching and scraping together everything we can to make this happen for our kids."
It may be, says Ida West Rd. resident Regina Feldpausch, who has signed the petitions against the development, that Southeast Michigan Motorsports is considering the wrong property for their proposed park.
"It is too much too close to residents," she said. "If you go down the road and count the number of houses along there, there are over 75 homes, and I counted them. And that's not even going off any of the side roads or all the way around the section.
"That's a pretty intense residential area for Ida Township," Mrs. Feldpausch said, adding that she believes it to be the third densest residential area in Ida Township. "If we were a subdivision everyone would agree that, ‘Oh no, you can't put it by a subdivision.'
"Well, we are a sort of elongated subdivision. It's just too intense of a use near all those homes."
What do you say?
What: The Ida Township Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on an application from Southeast Michigan Motorsports LLC to open a private motorsports park and club on 100 acres off Ida West Rd.
When, where: 7 p.m. Tuesday in the township hall, 3016 Lewis Ave. Since the commission has not seen a site plan for the project, no action is expected, Clerk Donald Appleman said.
