[helterskelter]

Wow 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.

[arjie]

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 written (IANAL) perhaps only C has standing. But either way, B is just some random person in this relationship.

[xp84]

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."

[jorblumesea]

if you've ever bought and sold a house, you will know people who look at deeds and titles aren't very detail oriented. they even have title insurance because it happens so often.

[jjk166]

Why shouldn't B have standing? They presumably are residents of and taxpayers to city C, and they face property devaluation stemming from nearby municipal actions.

[order-matters]

presumably because it's not their land and if A wanted to build a data center on it to begin with then B could do nothing about it.

the key issue is C doing things that it's taxpayers dont want done.

in this case though taxpayer money is not being spent, the property is being sold which means money is being generated for the taxpayers, and the new property owner is

ultimately A never had the authority to contract the land as a park indefinitely and relied on C to have respect for the deal and intent. Maybe a timeframe needed to be stipulated, but even then we are talking about land ownership - once C owns it they own it. If you wanted to buy a house and the seller said something about you never being allowed to develop a section of the backyard because they buried their goldfish there or something, and you respect that wish but now need to move as well, are you stuck with passing that obligation forward? someone can just arbitrarily decide that land cannot be used?

No thats why there is no standing, they have every right to use the land to better the taxpayers. the problem is not the method or authority, the problem is that people dont want to give up a park for a data center and dont see the data center as something that benefits the taxpayers. that issue is not one that should be settled by the deed.

the property devaluation is a problem that should be addressed independently on its own merits and not through the means of challenging if they have the authority or not.

[ip26]

A never had the authority to contract the land as a park indefinitely ... once C owns it they own it

That's not what a deed restriction is.

are you stuck with passing that obligation forward

Generally yes. Which is why the deed restriction can affect the market value of the property.

[order-matters]

The city usually has the authority to dismiss deed restrictions if it is in the best interest of the city.

my wording was too vague though, youre right in that I took for granted we were talking about the city and this doesnt generally apply to normal ownerships or else HOAs wouldnt be anywhere near as annoying as they are.

[thayne]

> if it is in the best interest of the city

I think a lot of people, including many of the citizens of this city would say this is not in the best interest of the city.

[perennialmind]

If you want to sell real estate while still retaining rights to visit a grave sited thereupon, the legal instrument is called an "easement". Sometimes the access grant is associated with ownership of another property (e.g. shared driveway), but it can just as easily be just to a sentimental goldfish aficionado.

[SwellJoe]

"someone can just arbitrarily decide that land cannot be used?"

Yes, deed restrictions in Texas are contractual obligations that run with the land. Due diligence in acquiring land in Texas involves making sure existing deed restrictions do not impede your intended use.

Some cities in Texas don't even have zoning (Houston is the largest such city, though it does have some land use controls these days that it historically didn't have), it's deed restrictions all the way down.

[mr_00ff00]

This is well thought out and a good point, it does feel like though there should be some “special case” for donating land to keep for public use as a park.

You are right though, how long can someone who doesn’t own that land, have authority on how it is used.

[lazyasciiart]

In Seattle the city is not allowed to take away park land without replacing it with the same area of new park land. No need to special case “if it was given by a citizen to be a park” - just make it park land at the time, and it’s permanent enough.

[db48x]

If you want a park, then build a park. Don’t give away the land and hope someone else builds a park.

[unholiness]

The Trustees of Reservations, in the Boston area, are a great example of this working well.

[ultrarunner]

They don't have standing on the deed restriction, and would have to sue for the property devaluation directly. IANAL.

[SwellJoe]

That's not true. In Texas the neighbors are exactly the people who have standing to sue for deed restrictions violations.

[CGMthrowaway]

In Texas, only certain parties can enforce deed restrictions, usually:

  The original grantor (or heirs)
  A property owners’ association
  Or someone specifically granted enforcement rights

A more strongly written deed restriction would have specified a reversionary interest, wherein upon the conditions being broken, the property interest automatically springs back to the original owner. The rules of standing still apply but the sale to data center might not have ever gone through

[ajb]

Depends how it works in the jurisdiction, but in common law usually this form of restriction is like a contract, but between two pieces of land, or between a piece of land and the public, rather than between two persons. In the former case only the current owner on the benefited property can complain. In the latter case, any member of the public can - but I'm not sure if a member of the public can create such a restriction.

[philipallstar]

> Why shouldn't B have standing? They presumably are residents of and taxpayers to city C, and they face property devaluation stemming from nearby municipal actions.

It's extremely common. They get called NIMBYs, because they bought a property at a certain price and a low-ability local bureaucrat wants to do something that destroys that value.

[s1artibartfast]

you dont have standing from indirect harm or costs.

[waynecochran]

What is the legal precedent for this statement? I am not disagreeing, I just would like to know what the law is.

[everforward]

It would generally be the opposite, what law gives them standing to sue?

My knowledge as a non-lawyer generally agrees with above, most states won’t allow you to sue for neighbors doing something legal that decreases your property value (CA is the exception I’m aware of, and even then it’s a “sometimes” kind of thing).

I’m not even sure who they’d sue. Presuming the land is zoned for a datacenter, the datacenter is allowed to do datacenter things. You could sue the city to try to prevent the zoning, but sovereign immunity would preclude suing them for doing their job (zoning, in this case).

[pessimizer]

> neighbors doing something legal

The question is about doing something illegal, such as removing a covenant that was involved in a sale when reselling? If it is something that could have been objected to by the original seller (they would have had standing to sue) and they have not agreed to change the covenant (because they are dead), it seems as if anyone affected should be able to sue.

The breaking of the covenant is what is being sued over.

> Presuming the land is zoned for a datacenter, the datacenter is allowed to do datacenter things.

If my house is zoned for a possible datacenter, that doesn't mean that anyone can build a datacenter there - it is still my house. If there is a covenant that says that the land will be a park, that's the "zoning" by the seller being stricter than local zoning, which means that it also conforms to local zoning.

The zoning doesn't say "The land must be a datacenter."

edit: It would be bizarre if we can sue over terms of service as if they constitute law, but we couldn't sue over terms of sale. I can sue Facebook if they allow another user to violate their terms of service.

[akramachamarei]

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_(law) the requirements for standing were developed in the Constitution and elaborated in some later cases. To quote from the article, the apt criteria seem to me (2 of the 3):

1. Injury-in-fact: The plaintiff must have suffered or imminently will suffer injury—an invasion of a legally protected interest that is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent (that is, neither conjectural nor hypothetical; not abstract).[44][45] The injury can be either economic, non-economic, or both.

2. Causation: There must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of, so that the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant and not the result of the independent action of some third party who is not before the court.[46] ---

The best way to understand why standing was not found is to read the court's ruling. Unfortunately (but not unusually) 404Media has not linked to the judgement. (I will try to find it.) My guess (IANAL) is the injury is hypothetical or conjectural.

[akramachamarei]

Update: this is the most up-to-date info I could find: Case 15-25-00202-CV

https://search.txcourts.gov/Case.aspx?cn=15-25-00202-CV&coa=...

Pamela Griffin, Ralph Griffin, Michelle Griffin, Corey Griffin, Individually and as Trustee of The Griffin Revocable Living Trust, and Polly Randle

v.

NCP Travis TPP Project, LLC

But the records only go up to February 20th.

[mothballed]

There was an interesting case Knife Rights v Garland (v1) where they determined you also don't have standing for imminent jeopardy if no one has done the imminent thing in decades in a way that results in criminal rather than just mere economic damages. This is why those in danger of getting a felony for interstate commerce of switchblades are unable to challenge the law because it's not considered an injury to merely have your business destroyed and your inventory seized.

[rcxdude]

It would be even worse for city planners if anyone could sue for a reduction in their property values due to a decision they made.

[mrhottakes]

There isn't a single precedent; standing and jurisdiction are like 70% of civil procedure in law school. This page is a good jumping off point: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/standing

[tptacek]

Right, standing seems like a series of technicalities until you realize it's fundamentally what keeps judges from becoming philosopher-kings that control the entire rest of the government: judges only exercise power in actual cases and controversies between formally-identified parties.

[seligerasmus]

Lots of questions about the colloquial (mis)understading of standing, and the actual standard, so might as well reply here.

IAAL, and the legal precedent is... the doctrine of standing. The article is paywalled halfway down for me, so I don't know the particulars of the complaint, but it's presumably in state court. Either way, most state doctrines are some variant of the essential elements for Article III (federal) standing, which are 1) An injury in fact that has or will imminently occur (i.e., no speculative or indefinite injury); 2) That injury must be a direct consequence (but-for causation) of the defendant's actions or inactions; 3) The injury must be redressable by the court. "Soandso did something and I, an otherwise unconnected party, may potentially lose value on my home's resale value at some undefined point in time in the future" is the type of abstract, speculative injury that never clears the hurdle. To the extent you actually want to soak in the torment of 1Ls everywhere, Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife and TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez are your big ones.

Outside of that, you'd likely need standing created by statute to bring a claim. But standing is just a threshold question that every litigator with a brain will attack because it kills the whole thing before reaching the merits. Even if Ps had standing, the prospects of prevailing aren't great given the timing, parties, and issues involved.

[SmirkingRevenge]

IANAL, but from all the legal podcasts/commentary I consume, I get the general impression that standing is a bit of a mess and is applied in highly inconsistent ways throughout the legal system

[munk-a]

This statement is far too vague semantically to be meaningful. It is technically correct under some extreme definitions of indirect (e.g. no affecting in any way) but if you are harmed in many inobvious manners you have recourse. In this specific example the neighbor is harmed through their property valuation - whether that will be a successful suit I cannot comment on but there is observed harm. Additionally, if a relatively forgotten homeless person is murdered and the murderer is found we still charge them - even if no individual is directly harmed by the murder happening we have a general understanding that murder is bad. Would you consider murder is bad to be a direct harm and thus skirt around the vague statement above or would you consider murder is bad to be an indirect harm and thus challenge the validity of charging someone with murder of someone without any obvious social ties? Also, if it's just some random person being murdered is the emotional distress on a family enough of a direct harm to qualify for your statement or do you think that murder (when it is not a failed attempt) is a crime for which no person has standing (aka the Telvanni way).

[s1artibartfast]

If we are taking about standing to sue, we are talking civil lawsuits, not criminal law. This distinction sresolves many of your questions. Yes there are nuances, but in general I think it is a reasonable huristic.

If Mcdonalds raises the price of burgers, I have more costs, but that alone is not grounds to sue Mcdonalds.

If a burgler robs mcdonalds driving a price hike, that is not cause for a customer to sue the robber.

[Glyptodon]

So there are two issues: (c) shouldn't be able to sell without the restriction, and (b) knowing of the restriction made decisions in good faith believing it would be followed and hence have been harmed by it not being followed, no? If (b) doesn't have standing, nobody does and deed restrictions are de facto useless.

[IG_Semmelweiss]

(a) has to sue and they will prevail.

(b) does not have standing.

[sleepybrett]

.. and if A is dead?

[HWR_14]

Property rights would inherit. So one of their relatives or heirs. If they had no one to inherit the restriction it would go to the state - but the state would have gotten the land unrestricted in that case anyway.

[no-name-here]

> deed restriction

Was there ever a deed restriction? The government says no, but they say there was something else which I don’t understand.

> In the notes about the grantee, the cash warranty deed states that the property was to be held in trust for future use as parkland by Williamson County, Texas. This was not a deed restriction.

The rest of the page doesn’t display properly on iOS. https://taylortx.gov/1293/Blueprint-Projects-Data-Center

[thaumasiotes]

> And depending on the way it's written (IANAL) perhaps only C has standing.

It can't possibly be the case that only C has standing. In your outline of the scenario, C is the only party in the wrong. They purported to sell something they didn't possess. A lawsuit would have to be filed against them, not by them.

[mindslight]

B should have standing from the park designation creating a public easement. I'm guessing the deed restrictions are pretty thin, and that pages++ of legalese would have done a better job. But this is the exact dynamic that everyone (rightly) hates attorneys for, both on the giving side ($$$ to hire an attorney to copypasta all that crap), as well as on the receiving side (pages of legalese are bound to create a bunch of extra facets to be dealt with by both the city and residents). Rather than the same rough type of structure needing to be reinvented over and over out of common law cloth, we really need reform aimed at defining commonly understood constructs that can simply be instantiated by reference.

[BrandoElFollito]

I don't know how the law works in the US, but isn't the selling by C illegal and moot? C accepted the conditions, but did not repect them.

Shouldn't C be attacked (legally of course) automatically?

Say C decides to build on a land they own a nuclear plant with known life endengering issues. Or a place to publicly hang people. Or other completely illegal things. They will surely be stopped by someone (the state?) from doing this? Automatically, that is without the need for a citizen to raise the point.

This is a similar case: they want to do something illegal (not follow what they ageed to)

[HWR_14]

B doesn't have standing because they are indirectly harmed? So if I sell a home in an HOA without the HOA covenant on the deed, can the HOA sue? It seems they are also only indirectly harmed.

[torstenvl]

No because the HOA represents the other members of the community who were also subject to the same CCRs.

[HWR_14]

Why would that make them harmed?

[IAmBroom]

My understanding is that the HOA could sue you, presuming that they baked into your purchase contract the force of their authority.

You would then have violated your contract with the HOA.

I also expect that the city violated their contract with A('s heirs). B still has no standing.

[NDlurker]

I wouldn't call a community member some random person.

[msandford]

Please tell me how I can just strip deed restrictions simply because I don't like them and/or they're inconvenient for me.

Deed restrictions are the mechanism that basically all HOAs are built upon so if you can just skirt around them because $reasons there are millions of people who would like to know.

[stronglikedan]

> Please tell me how I can just strip deed restrictions simply because I don't like them and/or they're inconvenient for me.

Easy - be a municipality. There's a reason the phrase "can't fight city hall" exists, and is for the most part universally true.

[cogman10]

Yeah, city law can easily override deed laws. But further, eminent domain allows the city to strip away deed restrictions through a "one weird trick". The city can eminent domain the land from themselves removing the restriction and then sell it privately.

The same way the city can eminent domain your home and put a road through it. The HOA can't stop the city from putting in a new road.

[msandford]

Aren't deed restrictions usually done at the state level? If so, the city can't just magic them away. State law is going to trump city law unless the city's restrictions are tighter.

[IAmBroom]

Can they do so retroactively? If they didn't declare imminent domain beforehand, I'd expect this is contract violation.

But we're all guessing at Lawyer Facts(tm).

[Avicebron]

So, the threat of violence (police/legal) if you complain about members of city hall lining their pockets with data center contracts.

[like_any_other]

Dig up the names and addresses of the public officials responsible for that decision and watch the phrase disintegrate.

[gfisher]

But that is how deed restrictions are enforced. If you didn't have that mechanism, then they would just not exist upon death, etc.

[ortusdux]

Depends on the wording. "Upon X, the land shall revert to Y, or current heir" is common verbiage in deed restrictions.

[fsckboy]

"standing" is a made-up concept with a fairly short history. Remember how we look back at the early part of the 20th century as being filled with virtuous people at every level of industry and govt? me neither:

The modern U.S. doctrine of standing traces back to mid-20th-century Supreme Court cases that crystallized the “injury in fact,” causation, and redressability triad, but its roots lie in early 20th-century rulings such as Fairchild v. Hughes (1920) that first linked federal judicial power to a plaintiff’s concrete injury.

[general1465]

It is exactly same like when OEM will make you sign agreement that you won't try to reverse engineer the car, but if you will flip it without the restriction, then all is clear.

[reactordev]

In which case C should be held culpable for the violation of the terms from A. As the condition of the sale. B should not sue D, but C. Try to get an A witness.

[SwellJoe]

In Texas it is exactly the neighbors who have standing to sue over deed restrictions violations.

[adjejmxbdjdn]

Are B not part of the city?

Why wouldn’t they have standing on an action by their government?

(This is a genuine question, not a rhetorical one).

[zeroonetwothree]

Generally the idea is that if you don’t like what the government does you deal with it through politics (elections and so on).

You only have standing if the government is actually directly harming you.

[insane_dreamer]

If the deed was restricted, how could C legally sell to D without restriction?

Is the answer "yes it was illegal but A would have to file suit and they're dead"?

[Aunche]

There is a tax loophole where you buy a lot of land and donate 90% of it to the government to be "public parkland". However, in actuality, you're the only person who has convenient access to this land and nobody else can build there, so you get nearly all the benefits of this land while claiming a big tax deduction.

It doesn't sound like what is happening here, but I don't think you should be able to block development on land you donated indefinitely.

[PyWoody]

What you're describing sounds like what we call "in current use" in New Hampshire. I know Maine has something similar but I can't remember what they call it.

You don't pay taxes on land in current use, but, if you or whomever you sold the land to, wants to build on it, they have to pay the back taxes first. It's a great for conservation.

[ortusdux]

You can get a hefty tax break on forest land in WA state as long as you have a forestry plan in place, and the same goes for fields in Florida for cattle grazing.

[sandworm101]

The law addressed this centuries ago. The general rule is that you can enforce such rules for a generation plus twenty years. That may seem like a long time, but the rule prevents the "cold hand from the grave" dictating how living people should act.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities

In this case, the farmer should have talked to a lawyer first. There are ways to set thing up to prevent misuse.

[selimthegrim]

Apparently not in South Dakota.

[sandworm101]

It can be done. A basic strategy would be to donate the land,but retain "air rights", retain an easment controlling all biuldings over a few feet tall. This is regularly done to protect views when selling land downhill of a house. Farms and parks would be OK, but not construction of a datacenter.

But governments have eminant domain powers. They can always force a purchase if they really want to.

[cucumber3732842]

>There is a tax loophole where you buy a lot of land and donate 90% of it to the government to be "public parkland". However, in actuality, you're the only person who has convenient access to this land

While I'm sure that's happened once or twice and serves as great fodder to get people of a certain ideological bent riled up, for the most part nobody is giving government land that's worth a shit. They're doing it to land that's effectively unusable due to regulation. Like if you own a strip that's a many acre 30ft wide along a steep river bank plus some space for a house (the lot layout could be the result of an old railroad or industrial thing) you gain literally nothing being on the hook for all that and you can't use it. That sort of thing is the typical case in which these sorts of things are invoked. It's more of a "well if you jerks care so much about what I do with it you can have it" type deal than a tax dodge.

[wahern]

It's actually a pretty common thing: https://www.propublica.org/article/conservation-easements-th...

It even sprouted a cottage industry of REITs selling investors a product built around it, syndicated conservation easements: https://www.propublica.org/article/syndicated-conservation-e...

[jmalicki]

There is actually a ton of this.

There is a huge Bay Area... not sure what to call it - public/private charity? - called the Peninsula Open Space Land Trust, that has a huge amount of donated land in the Silicon Valley, and is a very popular charity with very deep pockets that can buy land to basically turn into parkland.

They have over $300 million in assets and own over 97,000 acres, and have partnerships with quasi-governmental agencys like the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District to administer those lands as parkland.

The idea that noone is doing this is bullshit, and the idea that it is only done as a tax break is also bullshit.

This organization is a leading reason why living in the Bay Area is valuable and isn't complete urban sprawl. I wouldn't be willing to pay Bay Area prices if not for the existance of the land preserved through organizations like this.

https://openspacetrust.org/ https://www.openspace.org/

[infinite_spin]

seems like this behavior would have a chilling effect on deathbed donations, especially when it sends the message gives: "screw you, we'll do what we want"

I also don't see how this behavior is in the public good, even if the donor has some ulterior motive, governments are free to reject donations

[maxerickson]

If you take one step further back, you can make the discussion about what deed restrictions are reasonable rather than about breaking the deed restriction.

Like for an example with different dynamics, Menard's will say you can't use the building as a hardware store when they sell to build elsewhere. That's a stupid restriction for society to allow.

[ceejayoz]

This one leads to some very odd lawsuits.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/06/24/corner-cros...

[jvanderbot]

Yeah at that point it should be in a perpetual trust or some other holding co who can fend off the city. Never trust your neighbors with your stuff.

[dylan604]

This sounds like the better approach. Create a trust that runs a private park open to the public. This prevents the city from owning the land. The trust can also work out a deal with the city for tax benefits for running the park. The trust can also be set up so that a family member is always given an overriding voice while allowing the city to submit plans for proposed use, upgrades, permitting, etc.

[ghaff]

Basically you need to pay a lawyer to set up a trust which requires trustees if you care or donate to an institution with their own lawyers who you trust with a presumably long institutional timeline.

[ryandrake]

Trusts have always seemed to me to be pretty vulnerable. You have to trust the entire line of future trustees to actually implement what's written down in the agreement. Say I donate my property to a trust set up to keep that property a public park for 1000 years. I choose someone I trust to implement it when I'm dead. But, then that person has to choose someone they trust, and so on, and at some point in the future, inevitably it's going to fall into the hands of someone who would rather sell the land and spend the proceeds on hookers and blow.

[jvanderbot]

It'd be nice to have a non-profit that honors these. Made of collective like-minded individuals. Protected by case law. You know, like a government is supposed to be.... But I suppose a big non-profit would work. Make one.

[ghaff]

Everything is ultimately vulnerable, especially once you're gone. No institution lasts forever. Some are probably more likely to endure than others but there are no guarantees.

[miltonlost]

Public parks should not be developed on for the sake of the community. We need wild areas.

[triceratops]

We need wild areas in the community? Why? Let the wild be in the wild.

[childofhedgehog]

Having natural spaces within communities is vital for mental health. For example, Central Park in NYC is a vital resource for the city allowing people to enjoy nature close to home. Kids need places to go and play. Adults need space to recreate. Pets need space too. Why would you want to have no green spaces within your community?

[triceratops]

Central Park isn't wild. I replied to someone who said we need more wild areas. I'm all for parks.

[jmalicki]

There is a huge gradation of "how wild".

Central park is way more wild than a playground, which is way more wild than a city street corner.

The Yosemite National Park front country is way more wild than Central Park.

The federally-protected wilderness areas, where it is illegal to use a chainsaw for trail management as that is not sufficiently wild, in the Sierra Nevadas are even more wild, but still have a ton of people, trails etc.

The Brooks Range in Alaska is yet even more wild - no/few trails, take a bush plane in/out, etc.

Allowing a bit more wilderness is always a utility - it doesn't have to be binary wild/not wild (and very little land habitable by humans has ever not been severely influenced by humans)

[dylan604]

It's farm land. Sounds pretty wild to me. Also, we have wild land set up as parks as in national/state parks. A park doesn't have to mean slides/swings and a bunch of ankle biters running around.

[freak42]

Farm land isn't wild.

[dylan604]

Once you stop farming it, it'll be wild right quick. Not really sure why you're quibbling this way. Ahh, maybe it's because your just a bot

[PsylentKnight]

Because people want/need accessible parks? Texas in particular has relatively very little parkland compared to its size, and its population-to-park ratio is getting increasingly out of whack

[triceratops]

I thought parks aren't wild.

[freak42]

There is less and less wild left over.

[triceratops]

It won't be very wild sitting in the midst of a human settlement.

[antisthenes]

It just depends on the size. I know of several 1000+ acre parks that would be essentially considered wild areas with the exception of a few hiking paths.

They are full of wildlife ranging from small rodents to bears.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> I don't think you should be able to block development on land you donated indefinitely.

On land you contractually purchased with the condition that development be blocked indefinitely? Then why sign the contract? If they wanted a time limit, they could have put it in the contract, or not signed the contract.

[phil21]

Such contracts should simply not be legal. Past owners should in generally speaking terms not be able to limit development and land use decisions of future owners. It’s no longer your land. You sold it. Want to privately limit rights via contract? Consider not selling.

If it gets zoned as parkland as part of a sale - great! You should be able to make that part of a sale contract. But if the governing body then votes to make it something else a decade later, that should simply be part of how things work.

Old people ossifying things to how they prefer via preventing future generations to freely operate is not how I want a society to run. If anything the older you get the less say in the future you should have.

[alex_young]

Conservation easements are a thing. Many people support protecting natural spaces and the law is composed of such general understandings.

[phil21]

Yes, and they need to be flexible via public policy. If two generations from now some 10acre plot of land made into wildland is now surrounded by skyscrapers it probably makes a whole lot of sense for there to be a means for the local population to vote to remove that protection and turn it into affordable housing or whatnot.

It gets nuanced - but in general speaking terms this sort of thing should never be forever set in stone because someone alive 100 years ago decided as such via a private contract. Many other ways to go about setting aside areas for conservation.

Even conservation trusts make more sense to me. It’s still private, but they have an incentive to stay receptive to public comment and be a bit flexible. They might swap that 10 acres for another 100 acres somewhere else that creates a 1200 acre contiguous wilderness or what have you in order to stay relevant to contemporary needs while still staying true to the 250 year old mission.

I simply do not think you should be able to dictate (via private means) what happens to a property after you sell it. That’s for the next person who owns it to decide - in accordance with current local zoning and land use guidelines.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> Even conservation trusts make more sense to me.

That seems to be what was used here. Then the trust sold it for some cash.

[triceratops]

You're right if the land is sold at market price. If it's sold at a discount because of the restrictions, then continuing to enforce those restrictions is valid. The land's value is permanently reduced due to the inability to build, and the price reflects that.

[Dylan16807]

The price only reflects the future value out so far. The market price is based on a small number of decades. So for the purpose of respecting the discount, that reason dries up after a while.

[_heimdall]

Stipulating that such contract must expire after a period of time seems more reasonable than saying such a contract isn't valid at all.

[triceratops]

So add a time-limit to the restriction.

[bluefirebrand]

> Old people ossifying things to how they prefer via preventing future generations to freely operate is not how I want a society to run.

What do you think the outcome of this would actually be?

Someone wants to sell land to develop a parkland but they aren't allowed to dictate that it must be a parkland.

So they just don't sell it ever. Now instead of a nice park it's a direlect lot for decades

The answer to this problem isn't "fuck you old people we're taking your land and building data centers"

[bigstrat2003]

Then people won't donate their land to the city for the public good. So you still won't get your preferred outcome.

[_heimdall]

How is this about old people ossifying things? The land owner chose to effectively give it to the city for free with a clear contract stipulating the use. The city took it knowing good and well what was in the contract.

I see plenty of people here angry when the idea is floated of the US government opening up public land for mining, drilling, etc. You may not be one of them obviously, but how is this different?

[Dylan16807]

> If they wanted a time limit, they could have put it in the contract, or not signed the contract.

Most contracts are legally mandated to have time limits. I think that's a good policy.

In this case an explicit number of years it has to stay a park would probably work better than an attempt at indefinitely defining the land.

[bluGill]

There are some terms that are not allowed in a contract. I believe most deed restrictions are among those terms.

[coredog64]

Is it true that it was sold for $10? There’s a common phrase in Texas deed transfers similar to the below which just means “The sale price is none of your business”

Common Texas boilerplate: That for and in consideration of ten dollars ($10.00), cash in hand paid, and other good and valuable considerations, the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, the Grantor has bargained and sold, and does hereby bargain, sell, convey, and confirm unto the Grantee the following described real estate.

[dylan604]

There's lots of places that give 99 year leases for obscenely small amounts like $10. The neighborhood church near where I grew up owned way more land than it currently used. They "leased" the land to farmer/ranchers to grow hay in part of it and graze animals in other parts. It was leased with similarly friendly terms if not the 99 year lease.

These things are more common that people might expect. Not everyone is a lawyer-esque asshole, but that does open situations up to disagreements where people respond with "should have talked to a lawyer"

[georgeburdell]

Not a lawyer but my understanding is that a valid contract must involve an exchange of value from both parties

[rcxdude]

Yes, but that value can be pretty trivial. It's not uncommon in the UK to have a 'ground rent' of one peppercorn a year (for weird reasons of property ownership rules of flats).

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Having a rancher grow hay and graze their animals on your property is valuable: it means you don't have to take care of the land, which might otherwise become host to invasive species, or overgrown.

A neighbor used to let us graze horses on his property for the same reason: "that way I don't have to bother mowing it."

[projektfu]

Even more bizarre, the $10 cash never changes hands.

[dylan604]

Sounds like that sale should be null and voided at that point

[projektfu]

Someone apparently thought that about a Texas option contract but the Texas Supreme Court disagreed and said the contract was still valid, endorsing the fiction.

[dylan604]

Hmm, if I refuse to pay my car note, they repossess it. If you fail to pay taxes, the gov't places a lien on the property. Can the family that never received payment put a lien in place instead? That would prevent the $10million sale. That'd get someone's attention

[projektfu]

The thing is it's just a promise. If it would actually torch the deal to not hand over the $10, you can do it at any time. But the court agreed that it was just a fiction. Presumably if you didn't pay the option price, which may not have been specified directly in the contract, or was in some other exhibit, the deal never happened. But this technicality of consideration is not the same thing.

[repelsteeltje]

Would that mean the original owner gets it back? Would they have to pay property tax backlog retroactively? Might be huge..

[dylan604]

I'd put any tax bill owed back to the city. They are the ones that cheated on the deal. Of course, I live in fantasy land with that kind of notion

[rcxdude]

Generally only if there was some effort to collect it.

[toss1]

Yup, part of the problem is the City broke their agreement, but it seems no one with standing exists to legally protest.

One way to do this sort of thing so that it works is not a deed restriction, but to donate the rights to a third party.

We can think of property as a bundle of rights, the right to build, the right to cross the land on various vehicles or with wires or pipes, the right to subdivide, the right to mine or extract minerals, water rights, etc. For example, a piece of land may have an easement for the power company to erect poles or run lines across a strip on the land, or there may be an easement for a road or railway tracks.

Related to this particular example, the Nature Conservancy [0] runs programs whereby landowners can put a conservation easement on some or all of their land which prohibits further development (there are also other orgs doing similar work, particularly in smaller parcels as the NC often works with large areas).

The owner gets a tax deduction for donating the land development rights to a charitable org (and this usually reduces the price at which the land can be sold, at least in the short term), and the Nature Conservancy now has the right to ensure no one ever develops the land. The land can then be passed on to heirs and/or sold, but the land cannot be developed because the Nature Conservancy now owns the development rights and has standing to sue to protect the rights from being exploited.

[0] https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-priorities/prote...

[toxicunderGroov]

Don't the Chinese execute their corrupt officials/rich ppl while there families do the GoT shame walk?

I also like Oprah's 'you get to be a Luigi, and you, and you' etc approach.

Maybe someone can vibe code a corpo calorie calculator (CCC tm) so when u upload a pic u get an estimate how long it can feed your fam.

There has to be a way for the hoi polloi to get some cake too.

[FpUser]

>"Send them to prison"

Dream of my life to see politicians to be personally responsible for fuckups they cause to people.

[_heimdall]

At today's rate in the US, executive immunity is going to extend to all elected or appointed officials in perpetuity.

[AngryData]

And just behind that is politicians getting beat down in the streets when people realize the rule of law means nothing anyways and they have no reason to play along.

[fhdkweig]

Rule of law will always apply to the commoners. Congress critters can speed on the highways and ignore the Do Not Call registry, but the rest of us still have to obey the laws.

[kmoser]

Except that it usually works out to "rule of law for thee, but not for me."

[DANmode]

Citizens used to hold leadership responsible.

It wasn’t even that long ago.

Now, for a certain class, theft and rape are hardly a risk.

[xyst]

Politicians are just foot soldiers/weeds in this game. Pluck one corrupt politician. 2 more grow in its place.

I would like the billionaires to be jailed, their political pawns in government removed from office, Citizens United to be nullified, FEC regulations re-worked from ground up, and codified.

[SilverElfin]

This feels a lot like what happens with taxes too. You pass some measure to fund a particular thing voters want. That money then gets spent on unrelated things or just siphoned off into a city’s general fund, disappearing into corrupt grifts and waste. Meanwhile the thing you wanted is unaddressed, and a couple years later, that same thing ends up being recycled into yet another new tax to vote for. But you, the voter, still won’t get what you think you will pay for.

There is no accountability. And it starts with the notion of immunity. I think we need to get rid of that concept altogether. Politicians, cops, etc. must be liable for their actions. Personally. Otherwise even when they do something wrong, it’s taxpayer money that is lost. The perpetrators face ZERO consequences.

As an example: If a politician does something to violate your constitutional rights like when ICE does something bad or when legislation violates your first or second amendment rights, that politician should pay fines and end up in jail. If a cop makes a wrongful arrest or commits brutality, they should pay fines and end up in jail. If civil forfeiture steals from a law abiding citizen, those performing the act must be in jail. And so on.

[LorenPechtel]

Or the local game of putting stuff on the ballot that on the surface is for some reasonable purposes--but when you dig into it they're actually attempting to finance stuff that should be paid out of the current budget. To date I've voted against 100% of bond proposals because of this.

Meanwhile, city hall got built without any financing. And I can't imagine how it complies with the fire code. I really would not want to be upstairs in an evacuation!

[melon18]

I'm a little skeptical the farmer's family didn't see this coming. $10 in 1999 for 87 acres?That's basically giving it away with a handshake. City councils change, money talks.

[thrance]

Government officials are just revolving villains, send them to prisons and others will pick up right where they left. You have to uproot and get rid of the source: lobbying and moneyed interests.

[Glyptodon]

Why did the suit get dismissed? Local good ol boys doing the K-Drama USA dance?

[jmyeet]

I've been trying to find this out. I suspect it was dismissed because they lacked standing. Because there were a bunch of transfer, likely only the last seller has standing to sue for ignoring a deed restriction and of course they don't care.

That's not absolute. There can be other cases where you have standing even if you aren't involved in the transaction but those cases are limited.

Now it's also possible that the deed wasn't properly recorded. If it was, there might be more people who have standing, such as those near the project who are negatively impacted. It's possible that the district court erred or maybe the people bringing suit didn't live in the area or otherwise have standing.

It does seem wrong that you can effectively invalidate a deed restriction by simply selling it enough times.

[Glyptodon]

Yeah, there's no point to deed restrictions if the average person doesn't have standing to do anything about them.

[dwohnitmok]

My guess is standing. The family bringing the suit is not the family that donated the land.

[AdrianB1]

If it is a park, does it mean anyone living in the city has standing because their entire city lost the park?

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

Hopefully just being a resident of a city doesn’t give you standing to sue over any decision that has a tenuous adverse effect on you. I mean if that holds why shouldn’t visitors who might one day hope to visit the given park have standing to sue?

[AdrianB1]

> just being a resident of a city doesn’t give you standing to sue over any decision that has a tenuous adverse effect on you

Why not? If you are impacted, why not? When do you have a standing then?

Visitors out of town have less standing than the people paying taxes to the town, that is fair, but the city IS the people, each and every person, not an abstract third party that herds them like cattle.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

The impact should need to be material and related to some legal right you have, it seems to me. In general you cannot sue to enforce a contract or agreement you are not a party to, even if the outcome of adhering to that contract affects you.

[Glyptodon]

So deed restrictions are unenforceable then?