No good deed goes unpunished
A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center
271–280 of 574 posts
Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center
#272Are deeds with conditions like that legal in that jurisdiction?
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Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center
#273Wow they had the condition that the land be used as a park baked into the deed when they sold it to the city for $10, the city sold it, and when the family went to court their suit was dismissed. Now their home is worthless because nobody wants to live next to a data center. When are we going to hold local government officials accountable for bullshit like this? Send them to prison.
It was unclear from this summary but there are a few parties here: the original farmer A, the neighbouring family B, the city C, and the datacenter builder D. A sold to C with the deed restriction C sold to D without the restriction B tried to sue to stop D from building the datacenter, but B has no standing. Okay, that makes sense. It seems to me that A or C has standing, but not B. And depending on the way it's wri…
It's worse (in terms of complexity and therefore chances of arriving at justice). From the article:
July 7, 1999 – A granted the land to (T) Texas Parks and Recreation Foundation, a public trust, for $10 on the condition it be used as a park,
2003 - T granted the land to (W) Williamson County Park Foundation,
2003, one month later, W gave the land to the (C) City of Taylor,
2008 - C sold the land to E (Taylor EDC) for $15,000,
2025 – E sold the land to (D) data center developers Blueprint for $10 million.
At some point between T -> W -> C -> E -> D the deed restriction ('accidentally'??) got deleted. I'm sure T, W, C, and E will each point fingers at any/all of the other parties, and D will just point to their done deal that had no such terms in it.
If I had to guess wildly who, if anyone, had nefarious intent my bet would be that the City conspired with "W" (WCPF) to launder the deed somehow with the intent (way back in 2003) of sneakily putting the land to some non-park use that whoever runs the City government wanted at the time - perhaps at that time it was selling it off for housing development.
Then maybe in 2008 (note the year) they decided building housing was a terrible idea and changed plans to shop it around for some kind of commercial use so they shuffled it to the "EDC."
Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center
#274American zoning is weird. You can't walk to a grocery store, but you can walk to a data center.
Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center
#275[flagged]
Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center
#276Are deeds with conditions like that legal in that jurisdiction?
IANAL but Texas law seems to allow a great deal of flexibility in deeds. One interesting quote I found: > spelling out any additional agreements between the parties within the four corners of the deed itself can eliminate any doubt or ambiguity as to the content of those agreements. The word "any" does some heavy lifting here, I'll admit. > How can a grantor insure that the “as is” provision is unconditionally accept…
Property law in America is insane from all sides. It's one of the few countries where you can just say something is yours, and someone else can disagree, and you get to argue about it forever. The only reason it is like that is we are still pretending all lands belong to the King of England. We never went back and fixed it. Even England itself fixed this, but we're too stupid.
Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center
#277Totally unrelated fun story.
Recently I learned that the park nearest where my parents lived was named after a Mr Park, hence the name of the park, 'Park Gardens'.
It contains a war memorial, albeit with Mr Park's name on it, albeit his son. WW1 for you.
Up until 1920 the park was pasture, then Mr Park bought it and it was landscaped very nicely. Since then it has been a well maintained park and actively used.
For housing it would make a very good earner for the council, due to its location. As a data centre though? Only lots of bribery and tear gas would get that approved.
Once upon a time the park was just a farmer's field, for pasture. Nowadays it is proudly owned by the town and more than just land.
As for the story that 'land' might just be land, but, in time, it could have been another wonderful 'Park Gardens'.
Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center
#278[flagged]
Transfer the land to the city either for free or for a nominal fee, but with a covenant. City resells the land and ignores the covenant.
Yes, we know that title or deed is only as good as the enforcement behind it. But if governments discard that to enrich themselves, then that's what a certain amendment is for, as that is pure tyranny.
Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center
#279It's exhausting that the "solution" to problems like this is getting tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens stressed until enough public attention gives some small chance of redress. I'm not calling for violence, but if we can't get these things fixed in court there has to be a more effect and more forceful avenue for protest than venting on internet forums.
Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center
#280It's exhausting that the "solution" to problems like this is getting tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens stressed until enough public attention gives some small chance of redress. I'm not calling for violence, but if we can't get these things fixed in court there has to be a more effect and more forceful avenue for protest than venting on internet forums.
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