HOWELL, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) — A small access road was the focus of legal action as construction continued on the Motorsports Gateway in Howell.
“I really can’t understand why the city is going after a taxpayer who isn’t even within their jurisdiction to fight over this so viciously,” said Aaren Currie, a Howell area resident and local business owner.
The motorsports complex will include garage apartments, two circuits that can be combined to create approximately five kilometers of racing track, and an automotive innovation park. At the heart of Currie’s concern is about 30 feet of roadway that construction trucks used to cross his business’ parking lot.
“There were trucks blocking traffic in the front, which is a very limited sight distance, the road turns, there’s a rise, it’s just super dangerous,” he told CBS News Detroit.
Currie worried about pedestrian deaths or avoidable traffic accidents. But he says the developers haven’t returned calls and the city hasn’t taken his concerns seriously.
“The city said, ‘You know what, you’re blocking our access, you’re trespassing on our property.’ Not only did they send the police here twice with backhoes to rip out my equipment and harass and harass my family, we had the police come by our parking lot two, maybe even three times a day,” he said.
After multiple lawsuits and over a year, a judge in Brighton ruled in Currie’s favor, ruling that the City of Howell has no jurisdiction over that portion of the road.
“It was exhausting, but that’s what it was; it was very humiliating that the judge saw it and upheld the law and said this wasn’t OK,” Currie said.
Howell Mayor Robert Ellis was not available for an interview Monday.
Motorsports Gateway’s Eli Bayless said the project is still moving forward without using that access road, and that developers “look forward to several months of solid progress as we work to open our track to members of the Motorsports Gateway Drivers Club in the summer of ’25.”
Elle Meijers
