A decision to move or demolish the last of five Lake Madison homes purchased by the Lenawee County Airport is on hold until spring.
The five houses were purchased with federal and state grant funding after extensive litigation over the airport’s impact on their safety and value. The case went to court after a runway extension project 10 years ago.
Two of the houses have been torn down, and two others were lifted and trucked from Lake Madison to Planeview Subdivision at the opposite end of the airport.
It will probably be spring before a decision is made on what to do with the last house, which is still occupied by the former owners, said airport manager Joe Malak.
“I leaned real hard toward wanting to have the houses moved,” Malak said. Relocating the houses nearby preserves the local tax base, he said, as well as avoiding the destruction of relatively new structures.
The first house purchased by the county, located on Cadmus Road, was torn down before a moving option was proposed, he said.
Plans were made last year to move three houses at the Lake Madison development. Arrangements could not be made in time to avoid the demolition of one house, he said. Windows and some other parts of the house were salvaged before it was torn down and the debris hauled away, he said.
The first move was done last summer, Malak said.
Equipment from Cliff McCormick House Moving and Excavation in Jackson returned in December to take a second house to a vacant lot in the Planeview Subdivision off Sand Creek Highway, just west of the airport.
Sections of fence were taken down at each end of the airport so the houses, loaded on trailers, could travel across the airport to their new locations. The trailers were allowed to travel on the airport taxiway, but not the runway, he said.
There is interest by the moving company in returning to pick up the airport’s remaining house, he said.
State and federal officials required the buildings be removed after they were purchased. The property is within a runway protection zone that was enlarged after the airport’s runway was lengthened from 4,000 feet to 5,000 feet.
There is pending litigation by eight other Lake Madison homeowners seeking to sell their property to the airport.
- Source: http://www.lenconnect.com
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