Judge to Rule ‘Soon’ on Royal Oak Lot-Split Lawsuit

ROYAL OAK, MI — Neighbors in a stately Royal Oak neighborhood with oversized lots are fighting a developer — and city hall.

Kevin Baird has revised his development plans several times over a long-running battle in court chambers and city hall offices, altering the original plan to squeeze eight houses on lots now occupied by two to the scaled-down plan to build four houses approved by city officials in May.

The Vinsetta Heights Property Owners Association, which filed a lawsuit last year, was back in Oakland County Circuit Court Wednesday to make the case against the development before Judge Denise Langford Morris.

The lots in question are about 200 feet deep, and have frontages on both Vinsetta Boulevard and West Webster Road. Neighbors worry Baird will try to build houses on both sides of the street, even though they believe deed restrictions forbid Baird from splitting any lots — even under the proposal approved by city planners.

Vinsetta Heights neighborhood association president Steve Plackdharry and about 100 of his neighbors packed city hall and asked commissioners to disallow the development.

The City Commission did place a six-month moratorium on developers who want to split existing residential lots in June, but the action may not have come soon enough to help the Vinsetta Boulevard property owners, The Daily Tribune reported.

“The city says our only recourse is to sue the city for relief,” Plackdharry said in June. “A developer can submit something accepted by the city at face value because it’s signed. But a community of well-intentioned, well-informed residents, who are simply trying to protect our neighborhood from harm, who have legitimate concerns about the bureaucratic approval, we have to raise and commit our own money to force the city to spend our own taxpayer dollars against us, just so we can have our concerns taken seriously.”

Baird’s proposal conforms with zoning rules, so planners felt they had no alternative to accept the plans, City Commissioner Kyle DuBuc told the Free Press

“It’s hard to look at a hundred of my neighbors and say I can’t do what you want,” DuBuc said. “But the commission isn’t all powerful.”

Baird’s attorneys filed a motion for dismissal of the lawsuit, and Langford Morris said she will issue a written ruling on that “soon.”

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