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. The board did however approve an extension until July 11th, which is their next scheduled meeting, for the materials to be removed.

The unanimously approved resolution stipulated that the municipality could use funds from an escrow account to remove the materials themselves on July 12th if property owners have not done so or did not have a plan of action. Neighbors have complained about the building materials on the property, as well as dead trees and inadequate vegetation cover.

Township Planner Troy Langer says Black Wing LLC is looking to sell the property and has kept the materials on the parcel so the partially constructed building could be completed and used for another purpose by new owners. Langer says the property has received some interest, but that one potential buyer in question needed a space that had a building in place already and wouldn’t need to be rezoned.

The project’s architects submitted a request to rezone the property from Conservation Agricultural and General Commercial to Light Industrial, which Langer says will be helpful in selling the land. That request was unanimously approved by the township’s Planning Commission Thursday. (DK)