Northfield Township Hall, which houses the police department and fire station.
NORTHFIELD TOWNSHIP, MI -- A firearm optics testing facility is one step closer to becoming a reality despite concerns from neighbors in a township north of Ann Arbor.
The Northfield Township Planning Commission on June 15 granted site plan approval for Leapers Inc., a company proposing a private gun facility to professionally test and research precision firearm optics at 2960 Seven Mile Road.
Residents spoke out against the testing facility at the meeting, afraid it would generate too much noise and impact not only families, but horses in the area.
Todd Brown, owner of Oasis Equestrian Center, said he has already lost clients because of Leapers Farm.
“My clients are terrified … and they’re all wondering if they can safely ride a horse on my property,” he said. “How do I sell a farm that I have invested my entire life in when it’s 500 feet from a gun range?”
In response to the noise complaints, Joseph Philips, representative of Leapers Farms, stated the location will implement berms, sand and a heavily vegetated green belt to attenuate any sound.
David Ding, the applicant for the Leapers Farm project, has also stated the roof, north, south and west walls of its shed will also have soundproofing.
Planning commissioners decided Leapers Farm must comply with township noise ordinance limits upon construction and prior to receiving a certificate of occupancy. The testing for the location’s noise must be completed by a third party selected and vetted by the township with a township representative present.
Concerns also arose that Leapers Farm will decrease the property value of surrounding homes. Multiple homeowners spoke out about how this facility will impact property values.
“After speaking to multiple real estate agents, we were informed that adjacency to such a facility would decimate our property’s value,” said Diane O’Brien, Northfield Township resident. “(The installation of this facility) will forever impact the way this area is used and viewed long into the future.”
Other individuals like Angela Space O’Rourke, attorney at Space Law, PLC, said the facility did not follow the township’s master plan.
Space O’Rourke said the board has a “legal obligation and duty to follow the master plan,” and that Leapers Farm isn’t in line with that. She warned the commissioners that community efforts “will never end” if this site is allowed.
“Should this ridiculous plan be approved tonight, the many residents here will not give up. We will not stop fighting against a gun testing lab and corporate facility adjacent to our homes,” she said.
Northfield Township planning consultant Vidya Krishnan said the proposal is not in conflict with the master plan, however.
The decision to approve the site plan and provide a recommendation was not taken lightly, Krishnan said. The planning commission had to " balance the concerns of the residents, the use, the individual property owner’s rights and also what the zoning laws say.”
The private gun club is permitted in the AR Agriculture District subject to conditional use and site plan approval. A conditional use permit requires businesses to follow certain conditions set in place.
“The reason they are called conditional land uses is because it is understood that the use is likely to have certain adverse impacts,” Krishnan said. “Therefore the conditional land uses need to have conditions attached to them in order to protect the residents that are in and around it.”
In the case of Leapers Farm, the site has multiple conditions it must follow to be approved. One being that the facility can only be used between 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and operate a maximum of three weekdays.
Other conditions include not using 50 caliber or larger caliber ammunition, providing an annual report detailing the quality of its soil and groundwater and remaining compliant with the township’s noise ordinance.
The planning commission can only make recommendations and the ultimate decision will be made by the Northfield Township Board of Trustees.
The next board meeting will take place at Northfield Township Hall on June 28 from 7-9 p.m.
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