More thuggery and hooliganary in Elbert County: Elbert County has been designating parcels with XX zoning contrary to legitimate court-ordered subdivision in an attempt to force landowners to pay rezoning fees. This violation of the Court’s orders has cost some landowners up to $14,000 in impact fees. According to multiple sources, including former officers of Elbert County, who agreed to be interviewed by the Herald upon the condition of remaining anonymous, the County is knowingly taking action against landowners not only in violation of court orders to protect the division of lands, but against statute. The reason for the willful violation of law and order is, according to those sources, the necessity to raise funds against an increasingly desperate financial crisis. And, pursuant to CRS 30-28-101(10)(c) the District Court of Elbert County may in fact order subdivision of property exempt from impact fees and other zoning regulations, and pursuant to CRS 30-28-101(10)(b) those landowners who, in subdivision, create parcels of more than 35 acres are similarly exempt. What is particularly striking, and has motivated Herald sources toward interview, is that the County has begun to specifically target persons and properties that are in distress or vulnerable, such as those which are divided by court orders resulting from foreclosures. It is customary to mortgage some of the acres of a property, especially the 5-10 acres with buildings. When the mortgage is defaulted upon, the land is broken off from the buildings, and the bank takes the buildings. Encumbering both the severed land and the buildings with XX zoning (a form of zoning violation) until the landowner and the bank each pay impact fees and other fees associated with subdivision may be an expedient way to raise funds, but it is an illegal and highly unethical method to raise funds: to fight the fees demanded by the County would often cost more than the fees themselves, if the landowner is using an attorney. In Elbert County, zoning of a property is determined by the size of the lot and it is customary in other counties to simply rezone based upon the size of the lots created by court-ordered subdivision. As described one source, Elbert County takes a “let’s make a deal” approach to the fees demand, which are entirely arbitrary – contrary to requirements of statute, which prohibit arbitrary fees. Often, landowners and banks can negotiate the fees down by half. But sometimes, not: the Herald interviewed, upon the condition that the source remain anonymous, an agent involved in one case which broke the landowner when over $400,000 in fees were demanded for the subdivision of a large ranch into 35 acre parcels, pursuant to his statutory rights. A review of court records indicates that the District Court of Elbert County and the Appeals Court of Colorado have habitually denied Elbert County’s demands for similar fees related to legal subdivision. The persistence of Elbert County in continuing to demand numerous kinds of fees in full knowledge that such fees are frivolous, but upon the confidence hat and that those whom the fees are demanded cannot or will not protest them, is indicative of a base form of thuggery, and such hooliganary should outrage the public.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:45:27 +0000
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