The effort to save old buildings on Mackinac Island is being challenged in court. The hotel owner tangling with the island is even challenging the state law that allows cities to protect historic structures.
The two-story building on Main Street known as the Iroquois Bike Shop is more than one hundred years old. It leans sideways, seven inches to the side according to the island’s newspaper, the Town Crier.
The owner, Ira Green, says the building is beyond repair and somebody could get killed trying to shore up the foundation.
In October, Mackinac Island’s building inspector condemned the bike shop, calling it unsafe, but the island’s historic district commission would not allow it to be demolished.
Now Green has filed a lawsuit. It says the state law that empowers local historic commissions is unconstitutional if it allows the commission to overrule the building inspector. He’s asking a judge to find the building is dangerous and should be demolished.
The lawsuit is the latest in a string of disputes between Ira Green and the island stretching back many years. He demolished a building known as McNally Cottage in 2011 to make way for a new three-story hotel.
That demolition spurred the creation of the historic districts Green is now challenging in court. Mackinac Island’s downtown is a 200-year-old city, but up until January of 2013 it had no historic protections.
