West Bloomfield Township — A West Bloomfield Township couple wanted a vinyl fence in 2024, but what they got instead was a thicket that continues to entangle their life today.
Andrew and Natalie Main spent thousands of dollars trying to meet township requirements for a permit. They hired a surveyor, a civil engineer, an environmental consultant, a landscape designer, a landscape architect and three lawyers.
Two years later, they still don’t have permission.
Instead, they’ve been accused of violating the Oakland County township’s code for conditions they said existed before they moved onto the property in 2024.
But that’s not the worst part of this suburban zoning ordinance struggle.
Andrew Main, 34, told the township environmental manager in 2024 that the reason he wanted the fence was that one of the couple’s five children is autistic and a threat to run away.
The manager, John Roda, suggested Main set up a temporary dog enclosure for his son while the permit is pending, according to a lawsuit recently filed by the family.
When Main later shared the comment with his wife, who was 38 weeks pregnant at the time, she became upset and began to have contractions, according to the legal complaint.
“The Mains found Mr. Roda’s suggestion incredibly disturbing and distressing,” according to the lawsuit.
The legal action was filed May 1 in the U.S. District Court in Detroit. The Mains and their son are suing the township, saying its ordinance violates the family’s due process.
Alana Knox, the township attorney, declined to discuss the matter.
“The township has no comment on the lawsuit you referenced as it has not been properly served,” Knox wrote in an email.
Asked how the complaint wasn’t properly served, she didn’t respond.
Fence project runs into regulated woodland rules
When the Mains looked for a home in 2024, they hoped to find a yard with a fence or one that allowed one.
Settling on the house in West Bloomfield, they looked for restrictions on installing a fence in township ordinances, plat maps, property appraisals and seller disclosures, according to the lawsuit.
Finding no constraints, they bought the property in June 2024 and hired a fencing company three weeks later.
When Shelby Fence applied for a permit, however, the township said the property contained regulated woodland and possibly a wetland, which has a 25-foot buffer zone that doesn’t allow construction, according to the lawsuit.
Roda, the township environmental manager, said the fence would require a site plan and an environmental permit, both of which would have to be approved at a public hearing.
Natalie Main, 30, called Roda to explain how the family needed the fence for her autistic son, but the township official explained they would still have to meet the requirements.
Roda told Main the fence was “never going to happen,” according to the lawsuit.
The family referred a Detroit News reporter to their lawyer, Kathryn Gasior, who declined to talk about the case.
Family gets stuck with the bill for ‘disturbed,’ debris-covered woodland
In July 2024, the Mains had a landscaper remove invasive trees and shrubs from their yard and add 25 cubic yards of soil to fill low-lying areas.
After they told Roda about the work, he offered to visit them and perform the mapping of the wetland boundaries himself instead of the family hiring a private firm, according to the lawsuit.
During the subsequent visit, the township official walked into the woods behind the home and asked Andrew Main whether the family had done any landscaping there. He said they hadn’t.
Roda said the woods were “completely disturbed” and “covered in debris,” creating multiple violations of township ordinances, according to the legal complaint. He said a permit is required even to pull a weed in a woodland.
The township manager said the Mains would be responsible for restoring the afflicted woodland and wetland areas, according to the lawsuit. Everything would be put on hold until the restoration was complete, he said.
After the visit, the family received a letter from the township citing them for performing unauthorized activities without a permit, according to the lawsuit. It referenced sections of the township code regarding the cutting of trees and general work within a wetland buffer zone.
In February 2025, the Mains received a letter from Roda rejecting their application for the fence because it was incomplete.
The lawsuit, however, said the information requested by Roda was already supplied, wasn’t relevant or was never sought by township ordinances.
A zoning review attached to the letter also said the Mains failed to obtain permits for a shed and for part of their deck extending into the woodland. But the legal complaint said those items were built before the family moved in.
West Bloomfield couple: ‘No family should have to go through this’
After a second application for a fence permit was rejected in April 2025 for being incomplete, the Mains hired a landscaper to plan the property restoration.
When Great Lakes Landscape Design met with Roda three months later, he told them he had identified additional code violations on the property and that all of the permit work would need to be restarted, according to the lawsuit.
Roda said the Mains would have to remove three inches of fill material around the base of a tree in the wetland. Removal of the material, which wasn’t placed there by the family, would damage the tree, said the legal complaint.
Earlier, the couple was required to list all trees in the woodland with trunks six inches or larger in diameter. Now they were asked to conduct a survey of all trees, no matter the size. Such a survey isn’t required by township ordinances, the Mains’ lawsuit contended.
In November, the Main’s bid for a permit was rejected a third time for being incomplete. Like the first two decisions, the lawsuit contended that the information sought by the township had been supplied, wasn’t germane or wasn’t required by township rules.
The two sides had reached an impasse. The legal complaint accused the township of continually changing the requirements for a permit.
On her Facebook page, Natalie Main issued a warning to anyone considering moving to West Bloomfield: Do your homework.
“No family should have to go through this,” she wrote in October. “This is not a cosmetic project. It is a basic and necessary safety measure for our family.”
And she can’t believe the object at the center of this two-year-long rigamarole.
“Yes,” Natalie Main said, “a fence.”
fdonnelly@detroitnews.com
(313) 223-4186
@prima_donnelly
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Quest for fence leads homeowners to zoning quagmire in West Bloomfield
Reporting by Francis X. Donnelly, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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