Monitor Township, west of Bay City

Monitor Charter Township is the farm and subdivision country west of Bay City, its centre about 5.2 miles from the middle of the city in a straight line, with 36.8 square miles of land in the Census Gazetteer and almost no open water. It began as part of Bangor Township, which in 1859 took in what are now Fraser, Kawkawlin and Monitor; Kawkawlin was split off in 1868 and Monitor followed in 1869. Coal was mined here too, at the Michigan Mine from 1897. The April 2020 Census base counts 10,691 people, and the July 2025 estimate is 10,597.

Farmhouses and subdivisions

The 2020 to 2024 Census survey counts 4,733 homes, with a median build year of 1973. What stands out is the spread. There are 447 homes from before 1940, many of them farmhouses with fieldstone or early block cellars, then steady building every decade since: 861 in the 1970s, 730 in the 1960s, and 890, almost one in five, from 2000 on. In all 2,965 homes, 62.6 percent, predate 1980. Single detached houses are 78.6 percent of the stock and 444 are mobile homes. Owners live in 90.6 percent of occupied homes, among the highest shares in the county, and the median owner occupied value is 207,300 dollars.

That range means two very different basements can sit on the same road. A cellar under a farmhouse from the 1920s often has no footing drain at all and was never meant to be dry enough to finish, so the honest goal may be a controlled, pumped floor rather than a living room. A poured wall from the 2000s usually has a plastic drain and a pit already, and the trouble is more often a shrinkage crack, a tired pump or settled backfill.

County drains on farm ground

This is flat lake plain that was ditched and tiled for farming, and much of its surface water still leaves through county drains. The Bay County Drain Commissioner publishes outfall maps for the township, read through search summaries, that list the Kawkawlin River along with the Pine and Hildebrandt drains among others, and assesses Chapter 20 drains for upkeep. A yard that ponds for days may be waiting on a blocked county drain rather than a failed footing tile, and the Drain Commissioner is the office that can tell you which drain district your lot sits in.

The building department

Monitor runs its own building department, which issues permits and inspects new and existing buildings. Township pages, seen through search summaries, give the offices as 2483 Midland Road in Bay City and ask contractors who have not registered with the township to fax a registration form to (989) 684-9234 before pulling a permit. Ask anyone quoting whether they are registered, and check the township website for current hours.

Nearby

Bangor Township, the parent township to the north east, sits on the bay shore, and Midland, about fifteen miles west, pays owners to take footing drains off its sanitary sewer.