For many years it has been predictable that Mayor Donald Hartill would report, somewhat optimistically, to the Village Trustees on progress making Northwoods Road a Village of Lansing property.  Village officials have long had plans to improve the road, but nothing could be done until it was conveyed to the Village.  Month after month Hartill said that negotiations were moving forward, but after more than a decade it seemed more a case of crying 'wolf' than something that was actually going to happen.  Earlier this month he had good news: the paperwork was completed, signed, and Northwoods Road finally belongs to the Village.

"Northwoods road is now officially a village road," Hartill reported.  "That is one thing off my plate that’s been on my plate for a long time!"


As a privately owned road, Northwoods Road was an attractive but narrow boulevard with no shoulders or sidewalks.  Public roads Coventry Walk and Yardley Green are effectively stranded with no connection to any other public road.  The acquisition of Northwoods Road fixes that issue and several others, including access and work needed to create a new public park and providing a public connection to Warren Road.  A long-standing plan for reworking it into a boulevard-style road will negate the necessity for a separate emergency vehicle access road.  The Village will now be responsible for maintenance and plowing, as well.

"There are some drainage pipes that have to be replaced," Hartill said.  "One of them is failing quite badly.  We will work out a plan where traffic to and from both the residents of the apartments and our other residents will be accommodated by  defining one of the boulevards as a two lane roadway and fix that piece of the drainage.  Them we’ll define that as the new two way street and so forth."

He added that he hoped to extend the boulevard design farther to Wood thrush Hollow Road.


In 2012 massive neighborhood resistance to the proposed Lansing Reserve apartment project enveloped the road in the controversy.  With no public access to the 23 acre lot between Dart and Northwoods Drives, the Village sought to acquire Northwoods Road, in part to connect the 65 townhouse development with Warren Road, and in part to connect roads to the north to Village roads to the south.

Neighbors, including the owners of the road, were incensed, arguing that an unacceptable rise in traffic and potential crime would ensue if the development was approved.  A plan for inadequate road access to the property from Dart Drive added fuel to the fire.  Eventually the developer pulled out of the project, and the Village paid $300,000 for the parcel use as parkland, effectively killing the controversy and re-purposing the land for a use neighbors clearly want, as evidenced by their comments at a public information meeting last June.  At that meeting a rough draft of a plan was presented and the features of the new park -- to include a playground, ball field, benches, and pathways --  were outlined.  Preliminary work began on the new park this summer, and is planned in earnest next year.

Hartill said that a sidewalk may be added to the north side of the road next year, and other improvements are planned.

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