the ./gradlew clean step above throws this error. Can anyone help please?

Build file 'C:\myApp\android\app\build.gradle' line: 2

• What went wrong: A problem occurred evaluating project ':app'.

Failed to apply plugin 'org.jetbrains.kotlin.android'. Could not isolate value org.jetbrains.kotlin.gradle.plugin.PropertiesBuildService$Params_Decorated@67dd4464 of type PropertiesBuildService.Params > Failed to query the value of property 'localProperties'. > Malformed \uxxxx encoding.