The Hillsdale Township Board poses for a picture. Courtesy | Hillsdale Township Board

Local residents will be banned from parking broken-down vehicles in their yards, under a proposed ordinance drafted by the Hillsdale Township Board and the Hillsdale Township Planning Commission. 

Some residents of Hillsdale Township — which covers an area surrounding the city limits — have been accumulating broken-down vehicles in their yards and using things like boats, box cars, and semi-truck trailers as storage units, according to Hillsdale Township Planning Commission Chair Joe Sanford and other township officials. This devalues neighbors’ property and the property those vehicles are on, according to Hillsdale Township Clerk Janel Stewart. 

“When you have a property that has so much sitting around on it, it has a way of devaluing property around it,” Stewart said. “We’re just trying to come up with a solution for our residents.”

According to Stewart, the ordinance gives the township the enforcement power to eliminate eyesores and maintain good property value in the township. Stewart said the ordinance came before the township board at its Feb. 11 meeting. 

The board then sent a memo to the planning commission for review, Sanford said. The planning commission will be reviewing the ordinance between now and its March 17 meeting, he said. 

It’s possible the ordinance will return to the township board in March, according to Stewart, but it’s currently still in the drafting stage as the township board and planning commission keep passing the ordinance back and forth as they work to write exactly what they want the ordinance to convey.

Stewart said from a legal standpoint, if the township doesn’t have an ordinance like this in place, then it’s unable to help property owners who are concerned about their property being devalued due to vehicle accumulation in their neighbors’ yards.

“One of the reasons we’re looking at this ordinance is because in 2022 we adopted a new zoning ordinance, and in that zoning ordinance it does not address vehicles or vehicle storage,” Stewart said. “So we need this additional vehicle storage ordinance to address the vehicle issue.”

There was a piece of property in Hillsdale Township that had an excess of eight vehicles on its property, according to Stewart.

“Some were burned, some were dismantled, they were stored near standing water, and the whole property was an eyesore,” Stewart said. “We went through quite a bit with the court system to try to get that cleaned up, and that was under the old zoning ordinance.” 

Stewart said the township was able to obtain the order that it needed to be able to go in and clean up the property.

“The way the new zoning ordinance is now, we don’t have the teeth to do that,” Stewart said.

Sanford said the planning commision prepares the zoning ordinance, and the vehicle ordinance is a responsibility of the township board. The township board, however, asked the planning commission to develop the vehicle ordinance since the planning commission recently revised other ordinances, he said. 

“So we’ve been working on it for a year,” Sanford said. “It took several revisions.” 

Sanford said the township board doesn’t feel it must have an inspector going around scrutinizing everybody’s property. 

“It’s just when we get complaints,” Sanford said. “We had a number that were problematic.”

Sanford said rather than proactive enforcement, it’s reactive enforcement. 

“I think that’s good because nobody wants to have their property closely scrutinized,” Sanford said. 

The problem is not when somebody has a vehicle that broke down and it sits in their yard for a few days until they get the part to fix it, he said.

“The problem is when vehicles sit in peoples’ yards for a long time,” Sanford said.

According to Sanford, the planning commission made the ordinance specifically so two things are excluded from being banned: First, salvaging parts from cars hidden from view in a garage, behind a fence, or in a wooded area, and second, agricultural tractors and equipment that are used in a farming operation.

“In other words, you couldn’t have a bunch of tractors sitting around in a residential development like a suburban area, but if it’s actually being used in a farming operation, then all farming equipment is excluded from this, which in a rural township such as Hillsdale is logical,” Sanford said.

Every issue has a given timeline, according to Sanford.

“If we were to get complaints about your property and went there, it isn’t like, ‘Well tomorrow they gotta be gone,’” Sanford said. “A lot of times — not always, but a lot of times — you get 30 days to get this resolved.”

Sanford said the current zoning enforcement officer — Wayne Rurka — is a certified law enforcement officer, so he  gives a lot of latitude. 

“The township isn’t over enforcing stuff,” Sanford said.

People can hire wrecker services to haul away their vehicles to a holding area where it won’t be in the township, according to Sanford. 

“There are people that will buy, in some cases, junk for the scrap iron or for the parts,” Sanford said. “So there’s a lot of ways [to remove vehicles from yards].”

Township Board Trustee and Planning Commission Liaison Tim Wilcox said neighbors simply don’t want to look at vehicles sitting in yards. According to Wilcox, the township board has worked to solve the zoning issue while still addressing the issue of vehicles that need to be cleaned up.

“With a zoning ordinance, that will be able to take care of these complaints that neighbors are having with these issues,” Wilcox said. 

Send tips to the City News team: collegiancitynews@gmail.com