Burton's Mayor Warned About Blight. His Council Deadlocked 3-3.

By Carrie Thompson, Strategic Marketing Real Estate Agent, eXp Realty | Grand Blanc & Genesee County, MI

On a Monday night in July 2026, the Burton City Council voted 3 to 3 on an ordinance amendment that would have given the city more say over where gas stations get built. A tie fails. Nothing changed.

Council members Steve Heffner, Tina Conley and Candice Miller voted against it. Councilman John Wright was absent. A motion by Councilwoman Ellen Ellenburg to table the vote and give everyone more time to research it also died on the same 3 to 3 split. (Genesee County View, July 23, 2026)

To understand why that vote mattered, you have to look at what Burton has been approving.

Seven gas station projects in about two years

Genesee County View laid them out in October 2025. At that point at least four new gas stations had been proposed or approved in the city, with more behind them. (Genesee County View, October 2, 2025)

The four furthest along:

1. 4523 S. Saginaw Street, a Quick Stop approved by the Planning Commission in June 2024 to replace the former Burton Auto Parts, with five pumps and a 3,400 square foot convenience store.
2. 2014 S. Center Road, a Marathon approved in February 2024, rehabbing a former party store into a station with four pumps and a convenience store.
3. Belsay and Bristol roads, southeast corner, approved in August for a 4,000 square foot convenience store with a carryout restaurant and four pumps, on a site that held a gas station before.
4. 6026 Lapeer Road, the vacant Rite Aid at the southeast corner of Belsay and Lapeer, unanimously approved in May for conversion to a gas station and convenience store.

Three more were in the pipeline: a Chillbox proposed for the former Elwood's restaurant at 1076 S. Belsay Road, a station with a drive-through restaurant at 5516 Davison Road that got variance approvals in April 2025, and a development at 1275 S. Center Road.

The reason is a change in how Michigan taxes fuel

At the September 15, 2025 council meeting, Council Vice President Greg Hull asked the obvious question out loud.

"We've been getting a lot of blowback for all these new gas stations that have been coming up," Hull said. "I don't know if a new zoning is pertinent. I'd like to know how that would necessarily work but I do think that's something we should think about."

Councilman Vaughn Smith had gone looking for an explanation and landed on the tax change. In March 2025 Michigan approved House Bills 4180 and 4183, restructuring fuel taxes effective October 1. The 6 percent state sales tax on fuel was eliminated, and the Motor Fuel Tax rose from 31 cents to 51 cents per gallon to make up the revenue. The sales tax applied to the final price at the pump including the operator's markup. The Motor Fuel Tax is a flat per-gallon charge that does not touch the markup. (Genesee County View, October 2, 2025)

There is a second driver the paper noted: the industry has shifted toward large convenience stores with real food programs rather than living on thin fuel margins.

The zoning is the whole problem, and Burton knows it

Smith made the point that explains why the city keeps saying yes.

"Because of my ancient age, I remember when there was a gas station sitting on this property," he said of the Bristol and Belsay proposal. "You cannot have one gas station there, maybe 20-30 years ago, then deny a request there now because the zoning hasn't changed. You'll lose in court."

Old stations that were closed or torn down years ago are still sitting on land zoned for exactly that use. Developers are buying those parcels and bringing them back. Under Burton's current C-2 General Business zoning, a gas station is a permitted use, which means the planning commission and council cannot say no to one on a properly zoned parcel.

That is what the failed amendment was aimed at. It would have made convenience stores with gasoline sales a special land use in C-2 instead of a permitted one, requiring planning commission review and approval. It also set conditions: the convenience store would have to be at least 2,000 square feet, fuel sales would have to run in conjunction with a store or restaurant rather than as a standalone pump island, and fast food with or without a drive-through would be allowed as part of the development.

The city's own public works staff argued hardest for it

Amber Abbey, deputy director of the Burton Department of Public Works, took apart the objection that the amendment singled out one industry.

"This isn't singling any particular business out," Abbey said. "It's taking a business that is getting overburdened in our city and allowing us to have a special look at that particular location versus it being a permitted use where we have no opportunity to say no to a particular location."

Her argument for why it matters long-term is the one property owners should read twice.

"It actually gives you guys more power and the planning commission more power to allow these businesses or not to allow them when they don't make sense," she said. "So we don't end up in a situation where every corner is a gas station and then every corner goes out of business and now we're fighting demolition and removal of tanks."

She also said the amendment would help preserve what is left of Burton's C-2 land for other kinds of business. "We keep properties from being gobbled up by every gas station on every corner," she said. "Not even just corners, they're going everywhere. They are trying to go into every C-2 use that we have."

Mayor Duane Haskins made the same point in fewer words. If an oversaturated market causes some stations to fail, he said, "Then we have to worry about vacant buildings, vandalism and blight. The whole works."

DPW Director Charles Abbey put the question directly: "Do you want every corner to be a gas station and for no other businesses to exist in our city? People want a nice restaurant. They want other things. If you take every available area and every available space for gas stations, how are you ever going to get these other businesses?"

The three no votes made a free-market argument

Councilwoman Candice Miller did not think it was the city's call.

"I believe supply and demand will dictate if a gas station will survive in a specific area," Miller said. "I don't think another gas station is going to be in competition with so much competition in one area. I think that is their decision and not to be ours."

Councilman Steve Heffner said the amendment would let the city pick winners and losers instead of letting the market decide. He also argued the category has changed. He pointed to a Tim Hortons coming to the corner of Center and Bristol roads that will also sell fuel.

"But it's a Tim Horton's," Heffner said. "And it's a convenience store, so it's three businesses in one. So the technical gas station that was here in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, they don't exist anymore. These are businesses that have supplemented their income by trying to sell gas, which nearly everyone in this room buys."

Council President Greg Fenner tried to narrow what the vote was actually about. "This is a case of us saying where they can go, not necessarily that we don't need any more," he said.

It failed anyway.

What this means if you own or are buying in Burton

The practical takeaway is about zoning, not gasoline.

Any parcel in Burton zoned C-2 General Business can currently be developed as a gas station, and as of the July vote the city has no mechanism to stop one on a properly zoned site. If you own a home near a vacant commercial parcel, near a long-closed former station, or near an empty big-box or drugstore building on a commercial corridor, that zoning is the thing that determines what can show up there. Not the current use. Not what has been there for twenty years.

That is not unique to Burton. It is how permitted-use zoning works everywhere in Michigan. Burton is just the local example where you can watch it happen at seven addresses in two years.

If you are buying anywhere in this county, the question to ask is not what is next door now. It is what the parcel next door is zoned for and what is allowed there by right. Your municipality's zoning map and ordinance answer that, and Burton posts city information at burtonmi.gov.

If you want help checking what is allowed near a specific address in Burton, Grand Blanc, Davison, Fenton, Linden, Flushing, Swartz Creek, Goodrich or Holly before you write an offer, call or text me at (810) 893-3269.

About Carrie Thompson

Carrie Thompson is a licensed Michigan Realtor (#6501338662) with eXp Realty, serving Grand Blanc, Fenton, Davison, Linden, Flushing, Swartz Creek, Burton, Goodrich, Holly, and Genesee County. Known as "Your Favorite Property Girl," she brings a strategic marketing approach to every listing and every buyer search. Call or text (810) 893-3269.