The Bingham Township Planning Commission last week approved a special land use permit that may help resolve a longstanding dispute among neighbors in the Lee Point Road area.

After months of work and repeated public hearings, planners approved a special land use permit for a “clustered” housing project requested by property owners Alan and Michele Weverstadt and Clark and Lynn, L.L.C. The two property owners purchased 6.1 acres that had been the subject of a faulty land division resulting in too little frontage on Lee Point Road for each of their 3-plus acre parcels to be buildable.

A neighboring property owner sued the township over the faulty land division as well as neighbors over their plans for the property. The complex dispute has been the subject of several court actions as well as numerous Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals meetings over the past two years.

Township zoning administrator Steve Patmore said after careful consideration, township planners decided that the two 3-plus acre lots comprise a total of two buildable lots – not three building lots as requested by the applicants. Planners found that a third lot, located off Lee Point Road behind the first two lots, would not have been in keeping with the “essential character” of the area.

A neighboring property owner, Sue Darnold, said she and her husband were satisfied with action taken by the Planning Commission.

“Homes aren’t stacked behind each other along Lee Point Road,” Darnold said, “and it would have changed the character of this neighborhood substantially had the original plan been allowed,” she said. “Besides, when the parcel was originally split and sold, it was only to be for two homes, not three.”

In a separate but related action at last week’s meeting, Bingham planners also recommended approval of a zoning ordinance amendment that would restrict “clustered” housing projects to parcels of at least 15 acres.

“We spent a lot of time working on a ‘clustered’ housing project that only affected six acres,” said Patmore.

He said Bingham planners decided to increase the minimum size for a clustered project to 15 acres to keep such projects more in line with what was originally intended by clustering provisions – the preservation of open space and agricultural land. In addition, the change will clarify the differences between general and specific provisions in the “clustering” section of the zoning ordinance.

The proposed amendment has been forwarded to the Leelanau County Planning Commission for review. It will then be forwarded to the Bingham Township Board for consideration of adoption.

In other business at its regular monthly meeting on June 7, the Bingham Township Planning Commission approved an amendment to a conditional use permit for Ciccone Vineyards to double the number of annual events allowed and the number of people who may attend special events at the winery.