How It Works
The registry's only weapon is being right in public. A case page that overstates one fact hands the city a reason to dismiss every case on the site — so the standard below is strict where the public can see, and patient where it can't. This page states the standard the registry holds itself to: the three tiers, the three findings, the privacy line, and the correction rule.
The three tiers — every case sits in exactly one
Tier 1 — FILED
Someone filled in the filing form. Nothing has been checked. The story in the file is the filer's story, word for word, and the registry has not vouched for any of it. A filed case is visible only to the filer and to reviewers — never public, never in any count, with no finding and no clock running. Filing at a kitchen table at 10 PM with no papers in hand is a legitimate start.
Tier 2 — VERIFIED
A reviewer has confirmed all four of these:
1. Identity confirmed — the filer is a real person, reachable, and is who they say they are in relation to the property (owner, family member, or tenant, as they declared when they filed).
2. Property facts matched to public records — the parcel exists where the filer says it does, in the municipality named, at roughly the acreage claimed, checked against assessor and tax records.
3. At least one hard document in hand — a government document (the city's letter, citation, notice, a permit or permit-waiver record, an assessment) or one piece of dated proof of the use (a dated photo, an old advertisement, a license, a dated invoice). The filer's account alone, however detailed, does not verify a case.
4. The story is internally consistent — the answers, the documents, and the timeline do not contradict each other in any material way. Honest fuzziness about old dates is expected and is not an inconsistency; an unexplained material contradiction is the one thing that keeps a case unverified.
A verified case carries the verified badge and is eligible for the printable board packet. It is not yet public.
Tier 3 — PUBLIC
Verified, plus the filer's consent to publication on the privacy line below, plus a privacy scrub: a reviewer has read everything headed for the page and confirmed no phone numbers, emails, or mailing addresses; no full legal names of anyone under 18; no account or ID numbers; signatures and personal details blacked out of every document image; and nothing the filer marked private anywhere on the page. Only public cases appear on this site, in the counts, and in packets.
The three findings — sorted honestly
No finding is set off the filing form alone. A case is reviewed against its evidence, and the finding shows its reasons in plain words on the case page.
CITY PROBABLY RIGHT — signs
The use started after the ordinance was in place, and the owner knew or was told · the historic use was abandoned — stopped for a long stretch and restarted · there is a genuine safety or health hazard: dangerous animals, sewage or waste problems, fire risk, blocked emergency access, documented harm to neighbors · the property is a standard small residential lot with no farm history and no acreage · a commercial operation moved in at a scale the neighborhood never had, with real documented impact — not just a neighbor who dislikes the look of it.
GRAY — signs
The use is old, but its scale grew a lot beyond what it historically was · the records are thin on both sides and nobody can prove dates · the use is continuous but changed character — a family garden stand became a full retail store · the ordinance itself is ambiguous and both readings are reasonable.
CITY OVERREACH — signs
The use predates the ordinance and has run continuously — the grandfathering clock is long and unbroken; this is the strongest signal there is · real farm acreage with a real farm history — property over 2 acres, farmed or kept as farm, being re-labeled "residential" to shut down ordinary farm uses · the city contradicts its own past determinations — it once treated the land as agricultural and now claims the same land is "just residential"; a city doesn't get to have it both ways · the enforcement is selective — the same use runs untouched all over the township and only this family got a letter · the "violation" is a paperwork technicality with no harm alleged · the city won't answer — a long silence on a case with strong facts is itself evidence.
The sorting rubric these signs come from is a draft. It will be reviewed and corrected by a Michigan municipal / land-use lawyer, and no finding should be read as legal advice or a prediction about any individual case — on this site, a finding is the platform's assessment of a public record, stated with its reasons, and open to correction when new facts arrive.
The privacy line
Public on every case page: the municipality and the general property location — street name or nearest cross-streets, not the exact house number · the acreage and the use in dispute · the timeline: use since [year], enforcement began [date] · the city's claims, in the city's own words · the full response log, dated, including the days-silent counter · the finding and its plain-English reasons · evidence photos and city documents, with personal details scrubbed before posting.
Never public: the filer's phone number, email address, or mailing address beyond the location above · full legal names of minor children · financial documents and anything with account or ID numbers · anything the filer marked private at filing.
A full street address goes public only if the filer ticks that specific box when they file — their own choice, never the default, and they can change their mind and have it taken back off the page.
Corrections and retractions
Any subject of a case can submit documents or corrections — the filer, the property owner, a neighbor named in the file, and the municipality itself, through the same door as everyone else, with the same authenticity checks.
A correction is appended, dated, and labeled — what changed, and on the basis of what document — with the original text kept visible alongside it. If a finding changes, the old finding, the new finding, the date, and the reason all show. No silent edits, ever.
A case found materially false is marked RETRACTED, with the reason stated in plain words and the date — and it is not deleted. Its page stays, carrying the retraction, so the registry's own record shows the failure and the fix. A retracted case comes out of the municipality's counts, with the count change dated and noted.
The response log and the silence clock
Every case page carries a dated log of every contact between the family (or the platform) and the government: letters, calls, meetings, rulings — and the silences between them. The days-silent counter counts from the date the municipality is notified of the case; silence before notification is not logged as silence, because a counter is only honest if the city actually received something to answer.
An entry in the log is never edited after the fact. A correction is a new entry, dated, saying what it corrects. That rule is built into how the log is kept, not just promised in this paragraph.