One of the largest, if not the largest, vacant pieces of property in Green Oak Township is currently listed for a cool $17.2 million, but there isn’t a potential buyer or a viable development plan in sight.
The 284 acres known as Mission Hill is west of U.S. 23 and north and south of Winans Lake Road.
The township’s battles with property owner BKM Green Oak LLC over how the land should be developed subsided after 2008, the same year U.S. markets crashed.
No new plans have come before the township since then.
“Do I envision anything happening on it in the near future? Not really, but that’s all because of the market,” said Township Supervisor Mark St. Charles.
“There’s just not a whole lot going on,” St. Charles added.
Bingham Farms-based Burton Katzman Manager — formerly Burton Katzman Development Co. — is parent company to BKM Green Oak LLC.
According to Crain’s Detroit Business, several project LLCs tied to Burton-Katzman have gone bankrupt. BKM Green Oak remains active, however, according to a state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs filing.
The limited-liability company in 2005 purchased the property for $16 million — $1.2 million less than currently listed — from the Marion Hill Missionary Society.
Officials and residents earlier raised concerns about potential big-box commercial and potentially dense residential development on the sprawling property. Local furor over Mission Hill has died down in the past three years, however, St. Charles said.
The township has rejected both a large-scale commercial and residential plan and a scaled-back commercial plan on the property proposed by BKM Green Oak LLC.
Most recently, the township approved a proactive rezoning on the property — a government-initiated rezoning, rather than a requested one — from multiple-residential to village-mixed use.
The new designation is intended to draw mixed commercial, office and residential developments.
Mission Hill presents a logistical problem, whatever might be proposed for the site in the coming years.
Adjoining Winans, Whitmore Lake and Silver Lake roads can’t handle much more traffic, St. Charles said. He said infrastructure improvements would be a must for a project to work at the site.
“I think that’s going to be a problem with any development on that intersection,” he said.
In 2008, the township Board of Trustees considered purchasing the land, then rejected BKM Green Oak’s $18 million asking price. At the time, the township eyed the property as a location for recreational space.
Last week, the township board approved a $426,000 purchase agreement for roughly 30 acres of land east of U.S. 23 potentially for a cemetery and recreational use.
That $14,200-per-acre price is considerably lower than the roughly $60,000-per-acre currently sought for Mission Hill.
“That kind of tells you why we’re not looking at it (Mission Hill) for cemetery and recreation. You’d have to have a pretty packed house to pay for that,” St. Charles said.
Township tax files indicate $870,000 in local taxes on the two-parcel property hadn’t been paid starting with the township’s 2006 winter tax bills. The taxes have since been paid in full at the
county, however, according to county records. This summer’s local tax bills are currently being collected.
In 2007, township officials conceded the property was considerably underassessed for at least two years.
The property was assessed at $381,200 in 2006 and $781,100 in 2007, according to township records. A property’s assessment is set at 50 percent of its true cash value.
The lower 2006 assessment led to an estimated loss of between $15,000 and $35,000 in local tax revenue, officials have said.
The property has since been reappraised.
Contact Daily Press Argus reporter Christopher Behnan at (517) 548-7108 or at cbehnan@gannett.com.