By Phyllis Rose
A tearful Jill Hird asked the Brady Township Board at its March 5 meeting why she and her husband have not received documents relating to the delayed construction of the house they’ve been trying to build at the Indian Lake Nazarene Camp.
By the end of the meeting, the Board approved a consent agreement allowing the Hirds to go forward with construction once the agreement has been signed by all five parties involved.
The issue began about nine months ago after the Hirds had received all the permits and documents needed to begin building the house, said Jill’s husband, Brandon, in a follow-up interview. Construction of the home had progressed with the walls put up, the roof on, power on inside the house, gas hooked up, the basement slab and garage floor poured.
In June, 2024, the Hirds left on vacation thinking everything was going ahead. While they were gone, township officials including then-Trustee Randy Smith, Attorney Craig Rolfe, and representatives from South Central Michigan Construction Code Inspections (SCMCCI) visited the property and determined at least two houses, including theirs, were out of compliance, said Brandon.
According to information presented at the March meeting, a stop-work order was issued on the house because it wasn’t centered properly on the lot so that the space between the houses wasn’t the required 20 feet.
After receiving what Brandon described as an “aggressive, terrifying letter,” from the Township regarding the violations, the Hirds hired an attorney who advised them to pursue a variance, which they submitted last August 29. They included five pages of information detailing the timeline of when things were done and who was on the property doing the evaluations.
Attorney Rolfe acknowledged receipt of the variance paperwork via email, Brandon said. Then the Hirds met with township officials on October 8, where some errors in the application were pointed out. Those were corrected and the variance request was resubmitted about a week later.
During discussion of the noncompliance issue at the March board meeting, Rolfe said he received a phone call from the Hirds’ attorney early on in the process saying that they had decided to demolish the house. However, a second phone call from their attorney said things had changed and that the Hirds’ neighbors, who are Jill Hird’s parents, Dave and Jean Boyce, agreed to remove part of their house, a sunroom, so that the 20-foot requirement would be met.
Township Supervisor Randy Smith and Attorney Rolfe maintained at the March Board meeting that the idea of removing the Boyces’ sunroom came from the Hirds.
However, Brandon said the idea came from the Township at the October meeting with Township officials where Rolfe told them the only way forward was the removal of the sunroom.
For two months, the Hirds fought against the removal of their sunroom, Brandon said.
“We finally agreed that we would tear down the sunporch to get some resolution,” said Brandon.
“I want to finish building my house,” said Brandon. “I want to be done with this situation. We continued to fight for two more months, continued to have additional legal fees and emotional distress, only to essentially give in to it.”
On March 7, the Hirds received their copy of the document the Township Board had signed at the meeting two days before. However, before the document becomes valid, it must be signed by four additional parties: the Hirds, the Boyces, the Indian Lake Nazarene Camp and the neighbors on the other side of the Boyces.
In the process of resolving this issue, lot lines on the street had to be redrawn which is why the neighbors have to sign off on the paperwork.
The consent agreement crafted by the attorneys will outline step by step what needs to be done and what measurements need to be taken so that things are good down the line, said Rolfe at the March meeting.
Brandon hopes that once the construction starts again that they can finish the house in three to six months. For the past few months, the Hirds and their four children, 11, 10, 7, and 5, have been living in their in-laws’ basement.
“I have the best in-laws in the world,” said Brandon. “I love my in-laws, but no one wants to move into their parents’ basement with children.”
Brandon noted that his wife’s statement at the beginning of the March 5 meeting was the first time that the Hirds had spoken publicly about the issue, noting that they have never made any comments on social media about their situation.
