Sounds like a pretty benign group, raising money to buy affordable housing for low income families and to purchase land to keep it undeveloped.  Local politics are always exciting though and there is more to the Athens Land Trust than that.  A few months ago our neighborhood realized they had purchased a vacant lot on our street and planned to build a house.  The lot had been for sale for years but no one wanted to buy it for a house because it dips down steeply off the street because its dirt was used to build up the lot next door. The guy next to it had offered to buy it just to ensure it remained vacant so the deer, hawks, rabbits, snakes etc could continue to use it.

We live on a middle class street with a lot of 40 year old brick homes and a few new ones craftsmen ones like mine, not a place that needs revitalization through government subsidized housing for low-income families.  However, when we expressed opposition to the land trust, they basically accused us of being racist, classist bigots who were unwilling to help the poor.

As taxpayers in the county, we paid to support the half million a year this land trust gets as well as our sales tax dollars that helped give a 2.1 million fund to them for land preservation.  Our middle class neighbors were willing to pitch in $25,000 more to buy the land from them or even to donate that land back to the land trust for preservation but they were unwilling.  They also would not use any of that 2.1 million for the lot.  It has just been sitting there.

Turns out our street had a covenant that auto renews and an architectural committee so we paid a lawyer to update that document and got a new architectural committee together.  The land trust was condescending and blew us off at their board meeting that is “open to the public.” However, when we sent certified mail requiring they submit blueprints to us for approval, they did.  We sent back a list of needed adjustments.  It is a pretty long list to get their cheap house to be in keeping with the neighborhood.  It also has lots of environmental design principals like a gravel driveway.  Sounds good but it slopes so bad all the gravel will be at the bottom.  Also just a one car driveway.  The front has exposed granite instead of covering it with brick or hardiplank.  It is also less than 30 feet off the street, which our covenant requires.

They are sending us a written response by tomorrow so we will see what happens.  I expect them to build without our approval, daring us to take legal action.  There are a few people on the street pretty interested in that legal fight as well as taking on the organization as a whole.  The fact they are so against the desire of county taxpayers makes us want to challenge their future funding.  Also, the organization is so poorly run we want to challenge their non-profit status.  Their board is riddled with members directly benefiting from land trust financial transactions by both selling land to the trust and also receiving land trust homes.  How could the board be expected to make impartial decisions when they own the land trust their very home?

I’ve enjoyed getting fired up over some local politics.  Next, I need to figure out how to file an injunction to prevent them from building the house.  At a minimum, the covenant requires it be 30 feet off the street so I don’t see how they could ignore that.  The trick is that the lot dips down so fast that building it 30 feet off the street wouldn’t work well, which is why no private developer was interested.  The legal battle will be tough because we have no association fee and limited funds, yet half their board are lawyers so they will incur no legal expenses and have a fat budget courtesy of my property taxes.  It is messed up, but worth the fight.  Anyone know how to file legal paperwork without a lawyer?  I don’t even know what court to file in or what paperwork is required.