Dive Brief:

• A Circuit Court judge in Washtenaw County, Mich., told McCormick Construction proprietor Mike McCormick that he has until Nov. 30 to have his sewer-repair business out of the subdivision that grew up around McCormick's combination home and business yard.
• Neighbors complained, and the town of Ypsilanti sided with them.
• McCormick says he a judge told him in the 1960s that his business was grandfathered into the area because it predated zoning, but there are no records to show that.

Dive Insight:

This appears to be a classic case of changing land use and community standards versus the use that predated the community, an oft-repeated conundrum. In this case, McCormick has some bad public relations working against him – his house is in foreclosure, and Ypsilanti's attorney says that what McCormick has is an "illegal junkyard" that includes a garage built without a permit. McCormick says he cannot understand why the town would force out a business, but he also says he's moving.