Hartland Township officials have set a hard and fast clean-up deadline for property owners whose proposed softball complex development has fallen through.

June 7th of this year was the deadline for Black Wing LLC to remove building materials and dead vegetation from their 75 acres at the southwest corner of Clyde Road and US-23. Property developers had begun to construct the Turnin 2 Softball Complex that received approval in 2015, though the project was disbanded last year for reasons unknown to the township. Last June, the property owners were given exactly one year for material removal, which has not happened.

They recently submitted a request to the township for a 60 day extension to solve the issue, which was shot down by the township’s Board of Trustees at their meeting Tuesday night. The board did however approve an extension until July 11th, which is their next scheduled meeting, for the materials to be removed. The board may also be open to hearing a well-detailed plan of action for removal from the property owners at that meeting. It is not guaranteed that the board will accept the plan, and therefore the unanimously approved resolution at Tuesday’s meeting stipulated that the municipality could use funds from an escrow account to remove the materials themselves on July 12th.

Neighbors have complained about the building materials on the property, as well as dead trees and inadequate vegetation cover. Black Wing LLC does have a request to rezone the property to light industrial pending with the township’s planning commission, as Supervisor Bill Fountain says there may be some interest in the roughly 75 acres. Fountain says there is someone considering purchasing the property and the materials left there could be used to construct the building originally proposed for Turnin 2 and used for another purpose.

The rezoning request reportedly came as a response to the impending deadline to clear the materials. That request will be taken up by the planning commission at their meeting tomorrow. (DK)