The Michigan State Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the developer of the contentious Meadows project in Elmwood Township must pay the Elmwood Citizens for Sensible Growth group for its costs in fighting a suit by the developer.

At stake was a suit filed in March 2004 by the Stewart Investment Group, the developer of The Meadows. In 2003, the Meadows project had been approved by the Elmwood Planning Commission, but approval by the Board of Trustees had not yet been granted on the advice of the township attorney. The Stewart group filed a complaint for a writ of mandamus, which would have compelled the township to issue the permits for the project.

The township’s response to the initial suit was, as the Appeals Court judgment notes, largely confined to the assertion that the project had been passed by the Planning Commission. (The opinion can be read online here .) As a result, the defense of the suit was joined by Elmwood Citizens for Sensible Growth, which had a long history of opposition to the Meadows project and its predecessor Lincoln Meadows. (Full disclosure: Pei-shan and Steve Van Zoeren, publisher and editor respectively of The Leelanau Post, are founding members and long-time supporters of ECSG.)

Asked by the trial judge how its suit could be reconciled with the requirement that the project receive Board of Trustees approval, the developer’s lawyers claimed that a township official told them Board approval was unnecessary. Although questioned closely by the judge, both the developer and his lawyer declined to name this official, and in June 2004 the ECSG motion for summary disposition of the case was approved. In August 2004 ECSG was granted costs and fees by the trial judge.