Opinion ID: 432045
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the land in question

Text: 3 Riverside owns approximately eighty acres of undeveloped land north of Detroit in Harrison Township, Michigan, which it had planned to develop for housing. It is located in a suburban area approximately a mile west of Lake St. Clair and south of South River Road, roughly paralleling the Clinton River. Its southern boundary is separated from the man-made Savan Drain by two ten-acre parcels. Its western boundary is formed by Jefferson Avenue, a heavily travelled road. 1 4 Riverside's property comprises one sixty-acre parcel and a partially adjoining twenty-acre parcel. The sixty acres running along Jefferson Avenue were actively farmed in the past. In 1916, the sixty-acre tract was platted as a subdivision, and storm drains and fire hydrants were installed. The remaining twenty-acre parcel was neither platted nor improved. In the early and mid-1950's, some efforts were made by the owner to develop the platted subdivision. In 1960, the newly-formed Riverside Corporation bought the property. According to Riverside, its efforts to develop the property along with the surrounding area during the 1960's were stymied by an adjacent property owner who blocked an effort to reroute a street dissecting the property, and by a local zoning ordinance which forced it to fill the property to a specific elevation. 5 In 1973, unprecedented high water levels on the Great Lakes, including Lake St. Clair, located a mile east of the Riverside land, prompted emergency action by Harrison Township and the Corps of Engineers to protect area homes and businesses from water damage. Emergency measures included building a semicircular dike which dissected the twenty-acre parcel and extended southeast across the sixty-acre tract, and filling a ditch along Jefferson Avenue with dirt, thereby destroying the drainage on the western border of the property. 6 In furtherance of its development plans, Riverside contracted with Allied Aggregate Transportation Company in the fall of 1976 to have dirt fill hauled to the property. It was unclear whether or not the land would be subject to the Corps' regulatory jurisdiction. Accordingly, a Riverside stockholder met with Corps personnel to discuss whether a permit must be obtained in order to proceed with filling the land. Riverside submitted an incomplete application for a permit in November, 1976. 7 Before the permit application had been acted on by the Corps, Riverside began placing fill on the property north of the dike. On December 22, 1976, Riverside was ordered by the Corps to cease and desist from further filling. When Riverside continued to fill, the Corps asked the United States Attorney to bring this enforcement proceeding. 8 On January 7, 1977, the District Court entered a temporary restraining order prohibiting Riverside and Allied from engaging in further filling, pending a full evidentiary hearing. After that hearing, which encompassed seven days of testimony, Judge Kennedy issued an opinion granting the government's motion for a preliminary injunction. Judge Kennedy also held unconstitutional a Corps regulation requiring the processing of an application for a permit to be postponed once the United States Attorney has begun enforcement proceedings. On June 20, 1979, the District Judge issued the court's final judgment holding a large portion of Riverside's land to be a wetland subject to Corps regulation under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. Judge Kennedy permanently enjoined further filling on that portion of the property until the Corps issues a permit to Riverside. At the same time, she issued an order holding defendants in contempt of court because they had continued to fill the property. The defendants were ordered to remove the fill, which they have apparently done. Since that time, Riverside's application for a Corps permit has been processed and denied.