Work on the roundabout at Indianwood, Baldwin and Coats Roads is set to begin this construction season. Orion Township will contribute $84,000 for its share of the construction and over $40,000 for landscaping and street lighting.
The board of trustees voted to use $70,000 set aside for highways and streets in the general capital improvement fund and an additional $14,000 from general capital improvements for the township’s Tri-Party contribution to the construction of the roundabout.
The township is also responsible for landscaping and street lighting for the project, and will pay $41,589 to do complete landscaping in 2004. The expense for street lighting at the roundabout will cost the township $1,214 a year.
Doing the landscaping in phases would have cost the township a total of $43,592, with Phase I costing $19,073 and Phase II costing $24,519.
Clerk Jill Bastian wondered if it was a good idea to do the landscaping all at once, but rather to do it in phases.
‘We want to make sure it’s going to work,? she said at the March 1 board meeting.
?(A roundabout) is an unknown for us here in Orion,? said treasurer James Marleau. ‘We might want to change our mind.?
Trustee Michael Fetzer said a landscaping job would be under warranty so it could be changed if necessary.
‘As roundabouts are not a new design, I don’t think we’ll have a lot to work out with it,? he said. ‘We can save $2,000 now by doing it all.?
Bastian said she had thought the middle of the roundabout would just be paved or have some type of grass.
‘Not flag poles and signs,? she said. ‘We can add them later.?
Phase I of the landscaping calls for stone or cobble with no additional landscaping and Phase II calls for four maple trees, grass, and a wall with ‘Orion Township? on it, said township planner Don Wortman.
‘If we’re going to have it there, let’s make it attractive,? said supervisor Jerry Dywasuk, adding that the landscaping plan was low maintenance.
Wortman said it was also drought resistant as there was no water supply in the area of the roundabout.