Share
What do you do when your home-builder defaults before he builds the street your house is supposed to sit on? Some Charlotte residents caught in this mess want the city to help them get their street built. The city should do so. And then it should figure out how to plug the loopholes that allowed this ridiculous situation in the first place.
A group of seven houses were built and sold on what was to have been an extension of Wright Avenue, which now dead-ends at a creek. The houses are beside Lomax Avenue, near the entrance to the Charlotte Swim & Racquet Club off Sharon-Amity Road. The houses have an alley, so residents can get to their back doors and roll their garbage bins to Lomax.
Because their addresses are on Wright Avenue, police and FedEx get confused, and residents rightly worry whether emergency services could find them quickly if needed.
The situation apparently arose because the lots were laid out in the 1920s, long before the city-county subdivision ordinance existed. It requires builders to put up a bond to ensure that streets get built. But it kicks in when land is subdivided. Because no land was subdivided, it didn't apply. Bob Hagemann, a city attorney, says nothing in existing law lets the city require a street before houses are occupied.
The same holds for the building code. Says county code enforcement director Jim Bartl, “To my knowledge there's nothing in the state building code that says you have to have a street,” to pass building inspections.
Subdivision manager Linda Beverly in the planning department says a surprising number of lots such as those exist, predating the subdivision ordinance. This, though, is the first she recalls where houses were built with no street.
“It was in our contract that the road would be built within a year,” Stacey Searson says. She and her husband, Tom, have been there about 21/2 years. “We thought we were legally protected.”
They weren't. They've hired a lawyer, of course. But this situation shouldn't wait for legal matters to be resolved. A public safety issue requires prompt attention.
Bartl says the building standards department is talking with the city Fire Department about how best to plug the loophole, possibly using holds on building permits and/or certificates of occupancy to ensure proper emergency access.
Good. The city must make sure no other homeowners end up in such a mess.
