The Planning Commission shall review the preliminary and final site plans and approve, approve with conditions, or deny the site plan based on the purposes, objectives, and requirements of this chapter, and specifically, the following considerations when applicable:
(A) The uses proposed will not harm the public health, safety, or welfare. All elements of the site plan shall be designed to take into account the site’s topography, the size and type of plot, the character of adjoining property and the type and size of buildings. The site shall be developed so as not to impede the normal and orderly development or improvement of surrounding property for uses permitted in this chapter;
(B) Safe, convenient, uncongested, and well-defined vehicular and pedestrian circulation within and to the site shall be provided. Drives, streets, and other elements shall be designed to promote safe and efficient traffic operations within the site and at its access points;
(C) The arrangement of public or common ways for vehicular and pedestrian circulation shall be connected to existing or planned streets in the area;
(D) The landscape shall be preserved in its natural state, insofar as practical, by removing only those areas of vegetation or making those alterations to the topography which are reasonably necessary to develop the site in accordance with the requirements of this chapter. The Planning Commission may require that landscaping, buffers, and/or greenbelts be preserved and/or provided to ensure that proposed uses will be adequately buffered from one another and from surrounding public and private property;
(E) Appropriate measures shall be taken to ensure that removal of surface waters will not adversely affect neighboring properties or nearby bodies of water. Provisions shall be made to accommodate stormwater, prevent erosion and the formation of dust. The use of detention/retention ponds may be required. Surface water on all paved areas shall be collected at intervals so that it will not obstruct the flow of vehicular or pedestrian traffic or create standing water;
(F) All buildings or groups of buildings shall be arranged so as to permit necessary emergency vehicle access as required by the Fire Department and Sheriff’s Department;
(G) All off-street parking, loading and unloading areas, and outside storage areas, including refuse storage stations, shall be screened from the view of the street and/or adjacent properties;
(H) Exterior lighting shall be arranged so that it is deflected away from adjacent properties and so that it does not impede the vision of traffic along adjacent streets. Flashing or intermittent lights shall not be permitted; and
(I) The general purposes and spirit of this chapter and the Master Plan of the township.
(Ord. passed 7-30-2015)