Friday morning’s special meeting of the Oxford Village Council can be summarized in one word – no.

Village officials said it. Township officials in the audience said it. And in the end, the motion said it.

Council voted 5-0 to “decline” the proposed option agreement proffered by Venture, Inc. for the village municipal complex located at 18-22 W. Burdick St.

“There is nothing that you can say that would cause me to vote differently than ‘no’ on this,” said Councilman Erik Dolan.

Venture, a subsidiary of the nonprofit Oakland Livingston Human Service Agency, is interested in buying the 1.7-acre property – with its 13,624-square-foot government office building – for $450,000 and turning it into a multi-story, mixed-use development, consisting primarily of affordable apartments for low-income senior citizens. Some market-rate units would be mixed in.

It’s been previously proposed to add two or three stories to the existing building and renovate the current ground floor space to accommodate keeping the village office and police station there.

Under the rejected option, Venture would have paid the village $1,000 for the exclusive right to purchase the property until March 31, 2018. Venture also would have had the right to extend the option by another six months for an additional $2,000 and a $20,000 increase in the purchase price.

Dolan was upset this issue was once again before council given its Dec. 13 vote “to eliminate from further consideration” Venture’s concept plan for this project.

“I don’t personally know why we continue to revisit the exact same scenario,” he said. “I understand why Venture proposes it because, fiscally, it’s in their best interest. However, that doesn’t make it in the village or the community’s best interest. And that is all I care about.

“So, I would like to not see this brought before this council again in its current incarnation.”

But Al Martin, a representative for Venture, told council they listened to the concerns expressed by residents who attended the Oct. 27 town hall meeting regarding the concept plan.

As a result, he said Venture is willing to do things like get rid of the proposed fourth story, not add space to the existing ground floor for retail uses and limit the commercial space on the first floor to the village offices, police station and possibly, the Downtown Development Authority office, so as to address concerns related to parking.

“We’re okay with all those changes,” Martin said. “We are trying to figure out what building design would work for everybody. We’d like to hear your thoughts and ideas so that we can incorporate those into the plan.”

Martin explained approval of the option agreement is necessary so both sides can begin their due diligence to determine if the sale should go through.

“We know all the questions. We just don’t know any of the answers,” he told council.

One of the big unanswered questions that concerned council is whether $450,000 would be enough to cover the cost of moving the village office and police station, renting temporary space and renovating, finishing and furnishing a new permanent space.

PILOT? No!

One of the main bones of contention with Venture’s plan is its need for the village and township to approve a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) ordinance to make this development work.

Under a PILOT ordinance, instead of paying property taxes based on actual value, Venture would pay a certain amount annually for public services (a service charge).

Service charges are typically much less than a traditional property tax bill, but the amounts would have to be negotiated with and approved by the village and township.

Oxford Township currently has only one PILOT and it’s for Hope Senior Apartments, a two-story, 50-unit, 47,000-square-foot, multi-family development on W. Drahner Rd. Instead of property taxes, the complex, built in the 1990s, pays a fixed rate of $1,051 annually and will continue to do so until the PILOT expires in January 2029.

Venture representatives claim establishing a PILOT is the only way to keep the rents low enough for low-income seniors to afford these apartments. At the town hall, they said the PILOT would only apply to the affordable apartments. The market-rate units would be subject to standard property taxes.

But the four township officials who attended the meeting are all opposed to implementing a PILOT. They are Treasurer Joe Ferrari, Supervisor Bill Dunn, Library Director Bryan Cloutier and Ron Davis, director of the parks and recreation department.

“Whenever PILOTs are granted, those facilities always consume more (in) services than what they pay,” Ferrari said. “We can’t expect our local taxpayers to supplement what you’re not going to pay. That’s my whole position on the PILOTs.”

“I can only speak for myself. I can’t speak for the rest of my board members. But when you come to the township for a PILOT, I’m a no (vote), right from the start, because I don’t believe in it,” Ferrari noted

“You can count two of them,” added Dunn from the audience.

Cloutier noted he is a “staunch” opponent of “any type of tax abatement whatsoever.”

“It goes against all the philosophies of what I personally believe,” he said. “And that would be the recommendation that I would make to my board of directors.”

Davis said he “can’t speak on behalf of the parks and recreation commission,” but it’s his opinion as director that the board would not be in favor of a PILOT.

“We’re struggling just like everybody else financially,” he said.

Village President Sue Bossardet saw no reason to proceed with Venture at this point because of all the opposition to having a PILOT.

“I don’t know how we can say okay, when you’ve got three entities over here saying they’re not going to agree (to) it,” she said. “To me, it seems (like) you need to go to them and convince them . . . They have a say in it and if they all vote no, it doesn’t matter what we say.”

Tom Lapka, a Lansing attorney representing Venture, explained to council that approving the option agreement would give Venture time to approach the other boards about establishing a PILOT.

“We intend to go to those entities and talk to them,” he said. “That’s part of the due diligence process – to meet with the other stakeholders and educate them.”

“We may spend a year with the township or the other taxing jurisdictions (talking) to them about (a) PILOT and what the benefits could be versus what they get today,” Lapka noted.

It was pointed out by Lapka that the municipal complex currently generates zero tax revenue because it’s government property.

Lapka’s comments did not go over well.

“I’m very educated on the topic,” said Cloutier, who noted no matter what happens in the future, “the answer is still no.”

“I understand PILOTs. I know exactly what they’re about. I know the sales pitch. I get it,” Ferrari said. “Being a township rep., you can talk to me for the rest of your life, (my answer is) still a no. I know what (a PILOT) is – it benefits Venture. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with what Venture does. Venture does good work.”

What Ferrari objects to is the unfairness of forcing the taxpayers to “supplement” this project by paying for the increased use in public services that won’t be covered because of the PILOT. He said “the general public’s working hard” and “they’re getting tired of supplementing everybody else.”

“We just had a whole presidential election based on that,” Ferrari said.

Senior housing – a need or not?

There was some debate as to whether or not more low-income housing for seniors was needed in Oxford.

Ferrari said no.

“I’ve been in this community 26 years. I’ve never heard anybody say we need more senior low-income housing,” he said. “Never once and I’ve been here a long, long time.”

The treasurer pointed out Oxford already has Hope Senior Apartments and the 10-unit Oxford Square Apartments located downtown.

Councilwoman Maureen Helmuth disagreed.

“There is a need for low-income and senior housing in the area,” she said. “There’s a lot of people moving out of the village because there (isn’t) affordable housing. You can’t find that cheap apartment anywhere. It doesn’t exist anymore.”

According to Lapka, market studies show that affordable senior housing is “definitely needed in this community.”

“There’s a demand here for senior housing,” he said.

It’s been Lapka’s experience that whenever this type of senior housing is built, “almost all of the residents come from a six-mile or eight-mile radius” because people who already live in the area want to stay and this gives them an affordable option to do so.

What to do with the municipal complex?

In the November 2012 election, residents voted 921 to 675 to give the village government the authority to sell the municipal complex property if it so chooses. This vote does not mean the village is obligated to sell it.

Ferrari urged council to hold on to the property and wait for the right developer to come along with the right vision.

He said people used to tell the township it needed to grant a tax abatement to spur development of the old Sea Ray boat plant on M-24, just south of Ray Rd., otherwise it was going to be an “eyesore forever.”

But instead, “the township waited for the right development,” he said, and now, it “looks like it’s thriving” as the Legacy Center” and Oxford “didn’t have to give up a penny” in tax incentives.

To Ferrari, putting a low-income housing project on a “prime piece of property” adjacent to the downtown isn’t a good idea.

He noted it’s not going to help downtown economically because low-income residents are not going to have the resources to frequent local restaurants. “It’s not going to be a boon to your downtown,” Ferrari said.

Dolan said the village’s attempts to sell the municipal complex are “very similar” to its efforts to sell 98 S. Glaspie St., the former industrial site it has owned since March 2006.

“Nobody has developed a vision for that,” he said.

“That seems to be a regular, repeating theme that there is no forward-thinking and no projected vision,” Dolan noted. “Therefore, we cannot solicit what we would like (to see developed on these properties) as a village because frankly, as a community, we ourselves haven’t made that determination.”

The municipal complex is currently zoned for multiple-family residential use (RM-2).

Turning the complex into a residential development fits in with the Downtown Vision Plan prepared in 2005 for the Downtown Development Authority. That plan stated the village property could “accommodate approximately 40 townhome condominiums.”

Given it’s 12 years later, Dolan said that vision should probably be revised.