BOARDMAN — A local businessman has been in hot water with the township, and legal action has been filed against him in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Boardman Zoning Inspector T.J. Keiran cited ongoing problems with John S. Evan, owner of The Howland Company, Southern Six LLC, The Evan Company and other small corporations clustered at or around 7366 Southern Boulevard behind the Southern Park Mall. The township issued a notice of zoning violations on Sept. 12, Keiran said, which Evan has not resolved.

On Wednesday, on Boardman’s behalf and with Keiran listed as the primary plaintiff, the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office filed a complaint for preliminary and permanent injunction against Evan, Southern Six and the Evan Company, for multiple zoning violations.

“What’s going on is that Mr. Evan and the Howland Company are sorting and storing industrial materials on their property, and it’s not zoned industrial, it’s zoned commercial,” Keiran said. “He needs to remove the containers and stop conducting industrial activity on a commercially zoned property.”

Keiran said the township also has received complaints from neighboring business owners about the type of activity going on at the property.

The Howland Company’s website statesthe company, which Evan founded in 2004, is a firm for civil engineering, environmental consulting, home remodeling, asbestos testing and abatement, and lead abatement.

“It’s true that one of the materials is asbestos that he’s bringing from structures being demolished,” Keiran said. “We’ve received written complaints from some of the neighbors who are concerned about asbestos, but when we got the complaint about that, we contacted both the (Mahoning County) Health Department and the (Ohio) EPA, and they investigated and found no problem.”

Keiran said Evan is sorting and storing industrial waste materials, including asbestos, on the property, but that the asbestos does not constitute a violation by health department or EPA standards.

“He’s sealing the materials at the site and holding them in a storage container, but he was under the threshold for needing a permit from the health department or EPA, which is 50 cubic yards, and his container is 44 cubic yards,” Keiran said. “They also said the materials were properly sealed and stored for their purposes, but for our purposes we don’t want anything sealed and stored because he’s not allowed to do industrial operations.”

The complaint, filed in the court of Judge John Durkin, orders Evan to immediately cease the industrial operations and remove the containers used for storing the materials. The filing states that, per Boardman zoning laws, Evan can be fined $500 per day for every day the operations continue past the Sept. 12 notice. It has been roughly 140 days since the notice was issued, which amounts to approximately $70,000 should Evan not heed the order and Durkin decide to enforce the full penalty.

Keiran said he hopes the issues can be resolved before anyone has to appear in court.

The second part of the injunction request deals with the township’s zoning ordinances on landscaping, although the practical issue on the property also has to do with where Evan is parking his trucks.

Commercial and industrial businesses are required to have properly paved parking lots for business and customer vehicles. They also must seed and landscape any backfilled areas. Keiran said Evan’s vehicles are regularly parked on unpaved land which has been backfilled, and he also has not complied with the township’s standards for stormwater and landscaping.

“This property owner has filled in portions of the property and did not complete the improvements that are necessary to use that area for commercial parking. He’s not allowed to park on portions of the property that are not hard surfaces,” Keiran said. “He’s supposed to manage the surface by planting grass.”

Keiran emphasized that the injunction does not address any charges related to parking, but for the failure to maintain the backfilled properties by seeding within 30 days.

He said even if the winter weather does not allow for seeding, the area should be maintained with mulch and then seeded in the spring.

“He’s a licensed engineer, he knows what’s needed to do it properly,” Keiran said.

That issue, too, was addressed in a Sept. 12 notice sent to Evan, and has not been addressed. The penalties for the infractions are similar to those imposed for the misuse of commercial property, Keiran said.

Evan took the newspaper’s call on Friday, but declined to comment about the filing.