Middlesex Township and a conservancy group joined forces against a real estate development company in a legal dispute over a planned residential development near Glade Run Lake.

Butler County Common Pleas Judge Michael Yeager allowed the Glade Run Lake Conservancy to add its name to a legal dispute between Grey Hawk and Middlesex Township.

The township supervisors denied a proposal last year from Grey Hawk for a planned residential development near Glade Run Lake, citing a potential threat to the lake, among other issues. The development company appealed the decision to court, naming the township in its complaint. The conservancy group wanted to join the fight, a request Yeager approved earlier this year.

“The conservancy petitioned to intervene because they're most interested in protecting Glade Run Lake and they wanted to support the township's decision,” said Ryan Hamilton, an attorney with Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services. The nonprofit law firm is representing the conservancy group.

The legal dispute is over a development that was to feature 108 residential units on a 50-acre tract of land on Overbrook Road, but the plan faced heated opposition from residents, with many voicing their concerns at public hearings and meetings in 2019.

“This gives them the legal right to participate in the land use appeal — to make arguments on behalf of the conservancy,” Hamilton said.

He did note the township and conservancy group could have differing opinions on a number of things, such as when or if to settle the case.

In a previous filing, the development's lawyer, Jeffrey Robinson, wrote the conservancy group has “no direct interest in the outcome of this appeal as it has no property interest.”

But in Yeager's decision to add the conservancy group, he wrote the group “has shown an immediate, substantial and direct interest in the outcome of the above matter, such as to warrant its standing to intervene in this action.”

Robinson declined to comment on the matter.

Seperately, the developers filed a second legal action against the township. They requested Yeager to grant Grey Hawk's development plan on the grounds that the township didn't make a timely decision on the matter last year. The developers recently withdrew that request, but Robinson declined to say why.

Glade Run Lake was established and preserved by conservationists and lawmakers in 1955. But the lake was drained in 2011 over concerns for dam safety. In 2017, the conservancy group helped to reopen the lake to the public after the dam was repaired and improved.