Posted on 03/06/2004 5:14:35 PM PST by DugwayDuke
long-running property dispute on the Tennessee state line looks likely to go to court, after a group of landowners said this week that the Madison County Commission has still not answered their concerns.
Lisa Potter, spokeswoman for the group, told Friday's meeting of the commission that she had been trying to get a house number for her land for two years. "I am going to file a lawsuit on Monday," she said.
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County Attorney Julian Butler, Commission Chairman Mike Gillespie and Commissioner Roger Jones, who is responsible for northeast Madison County, cited the threat of litigation in declining to comment on the group's complaint.
The dispute centers on several hundred acres of land on Hale Mountain, an undeveloped part of the county northeast of New Market and bordering Tennessee. The land lies in Alabama, but is only accessible by road from Tennessee.
Potter, her parents Bill and Peggy Hopkins, and family friend George Bailey say they need house numbers to get building permits, which they require to develop the property. Potter, who bought 40 acres from her parents, wants to build a house where she, her husband and two children can live; the Hopkinses want to build their retirement home.
Potter said in an interview Thursday that since she first approached the county department that handles house numbering in late 2001, she has been told different things by different county employees and county attorneys - and given nothing in writing.
Eventually, she said, the county offered the group two house numbers right at the state line, but on the condition that no more could ever be issued. Peggy Hopkins took one, but the other remains unclaimed.
"If I accepted that house number, I'd be land-locking all the other landowners who wouldn't ever be able to get a house number," said Potter.
"We can't do nothing without house numbers," said George Bailey. "It's against the Constitution of the United States - they're trying to deprive us of the benefits of our land."
In a heated exchange at Friday's meeting, Potter criticized County Attorney Julian Butler, who had promised to send her lawyer a written explanation at the last commission meeting on Feb. 23.
"As of yesterday, no one had heard anything," said Potter. "If his reason why I can't have my house number is as simple as he says it is, I don't see why I can't get a response."
Butler said at Friday's meeting that a six-page letter had been drafted by a member of his staff on Feb. 24, and would be sent on Monday. He would not comment further.
"Ms. Potter has threatened litigation," he said. "Because she has threatened litigation, I think we should handle this lawyer to lawyer."
Commissioner Mo Brooks, who told Potter at Friday's meeting that it might be possible to engineer a compromise allocating house letters instead of numbers, said later that the case was complex.
"It complicates matters that there is not a road from the state of Alabama that goes through the state of Alabama to this property," he said. "I hope that they will be able to resolve it short of litigation. But sometimes you have to have litigation to figure out what the law is."
The group has retained a lawyer, Bruce Ables, who, in a letter to Butler on Feb. 17, warned that if the group was not awarded house numbers, they would file suit and "ask the judge to order the Madison County Department of Public Works to issue the house numbers, which I have no doubt the court will do."
Potter, meanwhile, said that if the lawsuit is successful, she plans to sue for damages. "They think we're just a group of poor stupid rednecks who can't afford to hire an attorney, and that we're just blowing smoke," she said. "There are a lot of landowners in Madison County that are in the same boat, and I don't think they realize it."
If he has disclosed the conflict to both the Trust and to the County, and they have granted waivers, he is probably in the clear on the ethics issues.
I saw on a response to someone else you indicated that the names matched. If you haven't done so, you can check here
http://www.alabar.org/directory/dirSearch.cfm
to see if there are other lawyers by that name in the state.
One final point - have they tried to get a Tennessee address? I know of one case of a man living near a state line who had his address in one state, but actually resided in an adjacent state. It caused minor legal complications, but nothing that couldn't be dealt with.
That's one reason why the relationship of the county attorneys and the land trust of north alabama is so suspicious.
Some back room land dealing going on? I sincerely wish you luck, Dugway. I have recently begun a job working with local government and have moments of both being pleased and appalled.
It's been a long time since I first started this thread and it's time for an update.
Essentially, the letter from the county commission stated that they couldn't locate the right of way connecting the property to the private road. We initiated a survey and had deeds recorded that incorporated the right of way. We then reapplied for the house numbers in August. After receiving no response, we reappeared before the county commission (twice). Some one on the county commission (I don't know exactly which commissioner intervened with the county attorney but the attorney's comments indicated that at least one had.) We now have our house numbers.
The county commission has decried that a committee of 'interested' parties will meet in January to address the policy for granting house numbers.
There were two issues from the commissions perspective. First, they want the authority to zone the county, something that has been refused by the state legislature and which lost soundly in a referendum. Second, the county wants to limit growth where that growth would be inconvienient for the county to provide services. We had to agree that the county would not be obligated to provide basic services such as trash pickup and 9/11 services.
Thanks for the update. Glad they got what they needed. Interesting legal question as to whether the county can contract away its obligations to provide emergency services. (And one that I don't know the answer to.)
In many districts, they will force you to tear it down if there is no recorded permit.
Sounds like a case of illegal subdivision. Do it right.
It sounds sort of resolved, but unfortunately simply issuing house numbers is a pragmatic act for safety reasons not associated with legally subdividing the land. The county officials do not understand their position function.
In a perfect world, one would simply walk in to the proper office and say, "No house number? No property tax."
Glad to hear your family(s) got their house numbers and can get on with their plans. I don't see any problem with the above as long as they don't restrict your ability to burn your garbage or keep and bear firearms. The latter part regarding 911 services - are those services reporting services (answering a 911 call), or response services - as in they won't be able to send an officer to the reporting location? I doubt you'd get very far with this bunch of bureacrats by asking for an appropriate reduction in property taxes because of the reduced level of services they are providing.
A ninety eight year old man from Maine (aka a Maineiac) was sitting on his front porch early one spring morning when a man walked up to him and asked,“ Are you Mr. Lawrence Pinkum?”
“Aayah, I’m him,” came back a rather slow reply.
“I’m afraid I have some very bad news for you, Mr. Pinkum. I have just surveyed your property and you don’t live in the state of Maine. In fact, you live in New Hampshire.”
The surveyor was sure this would upset the old gent and was quite surprised when the senior Maineiac replied, “Thank God for that. I don’t think I could stand another Maine winter.”
No, they cannot "contract away" their obligations. For example, the provision of 911 services is a federal mandate.
The real issue is that the county didn't want us to build there but had no legal basis to deny the house numbers. If the local voters had not had the foresight to deny the county commission zoning authority, they would simply had zoned this land as non-residential and we not be allowed to build on our property.
What's an illegal subdivision?
"The county officials do not understand their position function."
It's all about zoning. This states constitution does not give power to zone to the county commission. The county commission wants that power and were using the issuance of house numbers as a means of defacto zoning. If they didn't want you to build in an area, then they would simply refuse the house number. An ammendment to the constitution to give zoning power to this county's commission was soundly defeated a couple of years ago.
"In a perfect world, one would simply walk in to the proper office and say, "No house number? No property tax.""
When they said 'they couldn't locate the property" we asked if that meant they wouldn't know were to send the tax notice. They admitted that they would figure that out.
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