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Copyright 2002
The Detroit News.
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 David Guralnick / The Detroit News
Lyon Township used to be farmland. Now, subdivisions and services are springing up in an area that doesn't even have a fast-food restaurant, and former farmers have grown wealthy selling off their land.
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Lyon Township barely manages boom
Freeway, sewer lines kicked off land rush
By Amy Lee / The Detroit News
LYON TOWNSHIP -- The whispers started nearly 50 years ago.
Growth is coming, neighbors told each other as they chatted through fences and on front porches. The interstate that crews were building through the northern portion of the township would surely usher more people to this rural dairy and horse farming community.
Farmers, a no-nonsense breed keen on survival, eyed the freeway, quietly bought up land and waited for the promised population boom that would spike their land prices and pay for a comfortable retirement.
The wait was long, but it's clearly over. New subdivisions and condominiums now line the narrow country roads that once carried more horse traffic than cars. Two new South Lyon Community schools are planned in the township, where enrollment has ballooned by 47 percent in the past 10 years.
A sewer treatment plant serves a growing number of factories and homes. And within the year, the township's first big box retailer will open just south of I-96, where the Canfield family once farmed.
All this in a community that still has no fast-food restaurant.
"You can't hang onto everything forever," said farmer Bill Erwin, who recently sold a portion of his apple orchard to a subdivision developer. "It doesn't pay to worry about it."
Lyon Township is expected to grow more than any other community in southeast Michigan in the next 28 years -- nearly 345 percent from 2000 to 2030, from its current 11,041 residents to 49,076.
That creates a tension between old-timers and those who recently nested here, seeking a respite from the endless strip malls that define modern suburbia.
"It's already grown too much," said Jim Atchison, 66, a second-generation farmer who was supervisor from 1980 to 2000. "We knew it was going to happen, but when they jumped out here, they sure jumped quick."
Monthly township meetings drag on for hours -- often standing-room only -- and the issues are development and traffic. The township issued 112 new building permits last year, compared to 75 in 1991. In 1998, 30,628 vehicles packed two-lane Milford Road from I-96 to Pontiac Trail every day, according to SEMCOG, and locals say traffic has multiplied since then.
Newly hired township Superintendent Chris Olson calls Lyon "a blank canvas."
"We get the opportunity to shape a community and create a kind of 'up north' of Oakland County," Olson said. "It's totally different than the traditional management roles of repairing 50-year-old infrastructure or dealing with combined sewer overflows."
Threat of annexation
For years, Lyon Township watched developers encroach on its neighbors: Wixom, Novi, South Lyon and Milford Township. Builders avoided Lyon Township, though, because its land contains large amounts of clay, which expands and contracts when it absorbs water and can cause uneven shifts in foundations.
The threat of annexation by neighboring Wixom in 1997 prompted the township to make a decision that will forever alter the landscape of the small, rural community: It built a wastewater treatment plant and laid sewer lines.
Coveting thousands in tax dollars that Alliant Foodservice (now U.S. Food Service) would bring, Wixom made moves toward annexing a 230-acre township parcel Alliant was eyeing. The city had utilities available for the company; the township did not.
The township moved quickly to stifle Wixom's land grab, and partnered with a developer who coincidentally had applied for a state permit for a wastewater treatment facility.
"We had to get the permit, figure out how and where to build it, how to get the money for it and fight annexation all at the same time," township treasurer Patricia Carcone said.
The payoff: U.S. Food Service paid $39,385 in taxes to the township in 2001.
Optimism and dissent
The treatment plant has been a mixed blessing. It allows for more dense housing and can handle large commercial and industrial plants. That translates into more revenue for the township, whose taxes are middle of the road, compared to other quickly growing communities.
"We're still trying to keep the township rural, but we have a treatment plant to pay for, and we need a good tax base," Carcone said. "But the door has been opened to Lyon Township."
The influx of residents and traffic burdens the township's mostly two-lane roads. The township has 90 miles of roads, and only 60 percent are paved.
The newly available sewer line ignited a land rush for prime parcels, making wealthy men of those farmers who banked on the growth decades before. Only two farming families -- the Elkows and the Erwins -- are left from the long list that made their livelihood from the land in mid-century.
Landowners are seeking about $50,000 per acre; prime parcels go for up to $150,000. Bigger, fancier houses and richer families are landing on those plots: The median home price in the township hovers around $211,700, up from $148,930 in 1990; the median household income in 2000 was $67,288, up from $55,010 in 1990.
"We saw the writing on the wall 40 years ago, when the expressway came in," said Erwin as he cocked back his cowboy hat on a hot day. "I want to see this land sold. It's sad, but it doesn't make economic sense to go on."
But not every neighbor awaits the changes inevitable in the township.
Some feel crowded by the condominium complexes and wonder out loud why the township needs the $50 million Lyon Towne Center mall, which is under construction just south of I-96 on Milford Road. Its main draw: a monster Walmart. A twin development, Lyon Crossings, will rise on the opposite side of Milford Road.
"For every one person that's against it, I've got 20 that have come up and say they can't wait," said Tony Antone, vice president for development for the Bloomfield Hills-based Kojaian Management Co., which is spearheading the project.
Groused Atchison, the retired township supervisor: "You can get everything you need, except shoes, in South Lyon."
Township leaders are trying to stick to their master plan, which calls for at least one-acre lots for single-family homes, and clusters most of the industrial and commercial development near the freeway.
Nonetheless, at least two developers are negotiating for favorable zoning for their particular projects. In one case, residents have formed a grass-roots group to defeat a planned industrial plant in an area that's zoned residential near a lush golf course.
Banking on growth
Business owners -- mostly small, Mom-and-Pop-style establishments -- are banking on the idea that the township hasn't grown nearly enough. Angela Lepera and her brother, contractor Anthony Paterra, took over a small restaurant in March and have expanded hours and the menu to serve old-timers and newcomers.
Paterra's knowledge of the pricey new homes going up convinced Lepera to take a chance on the 56-seat restaurant, Nina's Coney Island, said Dina Lepera, Angela's daughter and the restaurant manager. It recently opened for dinner as well as breakfast and lunch.
"We're already slammed during the day," said Dina Lepera, 23. "I've had to grab the dishwasher to help bus tables because we were so hectic. Dinner is slow, but we don't think it'll stay that way for long."
Scratching a living from a Lyon Township business before the boom meant keeping your head on straight and your hand out of your wallet when tempted to splurge on costly upgrades, said Gus Vincent of Southfield, who owned the New Hudson Inn from 1956-84. The weathered inn, built in 1831, originally was a stagecoach stop and hotel. No picturesque fern bar, it serves hamburgers and beer to weekend bikers and men who do manual labor.
"Over the years, we cashed a lot of checks from the folks who worked at the Lincoln plant, the gravel pits and Michigan Seamless Tube. It was probably the poor man's country club," said Vincent, 75.
"I felt right from the beginning that we were in the midst of a lot of things happening. I guess I was just there too soon."
You can reach Amy Lee at (248) 647-8605 or alee@detnews.com.
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