Saving The Swamps
Draining wetlands for a new road is okay
if other wetlands are expanded.
HARRY KIRSBAUM
Staff Writer
JAS Executive Director
Marsha Goldsmith Kamin
Moshe and Allied Jewish Campaign
supporters for half a century, gave
$1.5 million from the sale of Meer
Dental Supply, the family business, for
the first of the two buildings.
The one-bedroom apartments will
each be about 650 square feet with
window treatments, fully equipped
kitchen, a patio or balcony, wall-to-
wall carpeting, individually controlled
heating and air conditioning, and
emergency pull cords.
At 850 square feet, the two-bed-
room apartments will offer living
space for a couple and, possibly, two
friends or a person and a caregiver,
said Kamin.
Once people start to move into the
apartments, construction will begin on
a second, as-yet-unnamed, 100-unit
building, said Kamin. Both buildings
will share a common area that will
include a 5,000-square-foot milchig
and fleishig kosher kitchen.
A task force study determined that
a kitchen serving only those two
buildings was most cost effective, said
Kamin, but partnering with Meals on
Wheels like the JAS facility in Oak
Park is a possibility.
"If Meals on Wheels increases the
number of runs [in the West
Bloomfield area], we would be happy
to help them here, too," said Kamin.
Michael Perlman, a lawyer and for-
mer JAS president who is representing
JAS with the township, said the two
new buildings will cost an estimated
$12 million, with $3 million coming
from public and private donors. The
remainder will come from bonds
issued by the Michigan State Housing
Development Authority with rental
income used to repay the bonds. E
est Bloomfield was
adamant: no new senior
apartments at the Jewish
Community Campus at
Maple and Drake roads until the wet-
lands impasse was solved.
It took about eight public and pri-
vate meetings to figure out how to
drain some land needed for a road
and rebuild the wetlands elsewhere on
the campus, but township officials
now say they are satisfied that helping
the elderly won't come at the expense
of bugs, frogs and other little critters.
The Jewish Apartments and
Services agency submitted plans last
spring to build a new entrance and
road west of the current driveway on
Maple Road, sharing an existing traf-
fic light at the entrance to Henry Ford
Hospital.
The entrance, needed for the
increased traffic the new apartments
will bring, would run north from
Maple past the Fleischman
Residence for assisted living, then
loop around the new apartments
and reconnect to the road by the
Lillian & Samuel Hechtman
Apartments, the existing block of
senior housing units.
The problem was the road would
cover about 1,300 square feet of low
quality wetlands, or retention area, at
its Maple Road entrance, said town-
ship officials.
State and local ordinances generally
prevent filling wetlands for construc-
don, but allow builders to fill an area
if they create new wetlands nearby.
When the JAS proposed to not
only extend the retention area far-
ther west, but also extend it to
other, higher-quality wetlands in the
northern and eastern parts of the
campus, the township board gave its
unanimous approval.
The wetlands area affected is not
high-grade," said Tom Bird, West
Bloomfield Township planning direc-
tor. "They would be expanding and
creating new and more valuable habi-
tat on land that they already own."
Former JAS president and lawyer
Michael Perlman is representing JAS
and its building partner, the United
Jewish Foundation, in negotiations
with the township. Perlman said the
increase of the wetlands in the two
other sites is a "trade off."
Increasing the wetlands is expected
to draw animals — birds, squirrels,
raccoons and possums — away from
Maple Road, where "they just become
road kill," said Perlman.
JAS will use conservation experts to
extend the wetlands, to ensure the
same quality of plant and other life
that's already there. 17
c
.5.0:4X4U VfIlt:fte
I. Norma Jean and Edward Meer
Apartments.
2. Common area.
3. As-yet-unnamed apartments.
4. Roads to be constructed
5. Wellness center (proposed).
6 Brown Adult Day Care Center
(under construction).
7. Expanded wetlands areas.
8. Retention area/low-quality
wetlands.
7/2::
199'
Detroit Jewish News
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