Legitimate Complaints or Just Plain Old Bullying? - Part 2 The Case of Mark Adams

This is the second complaint made against Mr. Mark Adams and his property here in Bridgeport Township. Sometime in 2011 there was a court hearing involving the legal battles between Mr. Adams and Bridgeport Township.  During that hearing it was brought up that there had been NO complaints filed against Mr. Adams.  Now fast forward to January 2012 and here we have the one and only known complaint filed against Mr. Adams.  I have redacted the personal information of the complainants to protect their privacy.

The first complaint is concerning a motor home that Mr. Adams had sitting on his property.  I can't speak to all the legal proceedings concerning the motor home since I don't have all the documents, this may have been what the court hearings were about in 2011, but I do know that Mr. Adams has since removed the motor home from the property.

The second complaint is concerning the front part of the property not being mowed and growing into tall weeds. 

I believe that the front part of this property has never been a "yard" with grass but has always been a field area. This property was zoned residential/agricultural when Mr. Adams purchased it.  It is located in a residential/agricultural zone in the township.  At some point after Mr. Adams purchased this land, the township changed the zoning on his parcel of land from residential/agricultural to residential/vacant. I do not know the exact date that this was done.  The change in zoning does affect what Mr. Adams can do with the property and also affects the value of the property.  Did the township rezone any other similar parcels of land from residential/agricultural to residential/vacant at this time? Or was it only Mr. Adams land?

You can clearly see by the photo in a earlier post here on my blog that much of the land around Mr. Adams property is farmland.  It is my understanding that Mr. Adams had hoped to eventually use that small field area to plant some crops to use for the research his company does involving various types of lubricants, plant based lubricants.  Maybe he wanted to play "farmer/scientist" with a few crops, who cares, it is his property and his business.  Will the township now start telling residents they can't grow a garden unless the property is zoned agricultural?

This property was owned by another person for approximately 4 years before he sold it to Mr. Adams in October of 2010.  I believe the previous owner bought the land and never did anything with it.  I have been told that he did receive a letter one time from Bridgeport Township politely asking him to mow the weeds in the front part.  He mowed them and there was no problem.  The township never went onto this land when this gentleman owned it and mowed it.  Out of the four years he only had to mow it once.  At any time during that four year period did the above residents or any other residents ever file a complaint about the weeds on the property?  Not that I am aware of.
** Mr. Adams told me that he did receive a letter from Bridgeport Township in June of  2011, concerning the weeds on his property but he was out of the country on business for his company at the time.  When he returned he called Bridgeport Township and wanted to meet with them concerning the letter, but they told him there was no need to meet since they had already been out to his property and mowed it.**

It would appear by looking on the Saginaw Area GIS property search site that this previous gentleman bought this land from Bridgeport Township in 2006.  I can't tell for sure since there are no names listed for a 1997 transaction for this property, but it is possible that it was then that Bridgeport Township took possession of this property.  If Bridgeport Township had this property from 1997 to 2006, did they keep this property mowed all the time?  I have heard that it wasn't kept mowed but I can't swear to that since it is miles from my home and I don't drive around the township looking for things to complain about concerning other peoples properties.  If the weeds weren't kept mowed from 1997 to 2006, did any residents file a complaint during that time period.  Guess I would have to request that information from the township.

In the above complaint made in 2012, the statement is made "We feel our property value will decrease if this sort of thing is allowed to exist".  

If I owned property on this road I would be more concerned about a vacant property that is just down the road from Mr. Adams property, it actually sits closer to the above complainants property than Mr. Adams property does.  This property was foreclosed on in 2011 and is now owned by the U.S. Dept of Agriculture. It has been sitting vacant now for almost 3 years and is falling into disrepair, the windows are boarded up.  I have searched all the real estate sites for our area and it states that this property is not for sale, so I guess it will be sitting vacant for the foreseeable future and will continue to deteriorate.  I would think that this property would be more likely to cause the property values to fall for the surrounding areas than the piece of land that Mr. Adams bought and has tried to make improvements on.  Here is the property that is now sitting abandoned on Riverview.  Has anyone filed a complaint about this property or has Bridgeport Township fined the Dept of Agriculture for this blight?  Has Bridgeport Township hauled the Dept of Agriculture into court over this?

I drove out to the area around Mr. Adams property and looked around at the "weed" conditions.  Below you can see photos of some of the weeds up and down this road.  Even after the long hard winter we have had here with possibly a record snow fall, some of these weeds are still way over the "10 inch" rule the township has.  And as far as any "noxious weeds", I am sure once every thing starts growing again that I will be able to find "noxious weeds" along this road.

There is a small section of land that sits at the corner of Riverview and Blackmar Rd, it sits right across the road from Mr. Adams property.  It is overgrown with weeds and littered with garbage.  Has any resident ever complained about this?

A little farther down the road from Mr. Adams property are several parcels that appear to be zoned agricultural but it doesn't appear to me that they have been farmed in at least a year.  The front half of the property is fields and the back half is wooded.  There appears to be a few old corn stalks left in the fields along with weeds that are several feet high.  Has anyone ever complained about these weeds?

You can drive up and down this road and you will see the sides of the road look like this. For the residential properties that have homes on them and a regular front yard, there were no weeds.  But it seems that much of the land on this road is agricultural or wooded.   Again I ask, has anyone ever filed complaints about these?

WARNING: These next few photo's are very graphic!!  If you can't stand horror then please don't look.

These next two photo's are of the front part of Mr. Adams property.  The Weeds!!!  The Horror!!!  But I guess it is all good, Bridgeport Township made several hundred dollars by mowing these weeds from hell.  They mowed from the road all the way back to the tree line.  Think how much money the township could raise if they went up and down this entire road mowing all the weeds. That could be a real money maker for the township.