Council votes to condemn North Hills Country Club
By Greg Rayburn \ Editor
Thursday, January 31, 2008 10:57 AM CST
As private developers were moving ahead with proposals to convert the former North Hills Country Club into a housing development, the Sherwood City Council voted unanimously Monday night to condemn the property and claim eminent domain.
The vote was taken during a special meeting held an hour before the council’s regular monthly meeting. Alderwoman Sheila Sulcer abstained from the vote, saying she owns property near the site.
Club Properties Inc., which owns North Hills, and the city have disagreed on a price for the land since last summer. A city appraisal had placed its value at about $2.2 million while a private developer had offered to pay $5.3 million to convert it into a residential housing development. Club Properties is owned by Jim Rodgers, Tommy Eanes and Rick Munnerlyn.
In a phone interview Tuesday, Rodgers said neither he nor his partners agreed with the City Council’s action.
Council members Charles Harmon and Becki Vassar led the effort to condemn the property, saying it needs to be retained by the community and not be converted to a residential neighborhood.
The language of the ordinance states that the former country club “should be preserved as a public park, including green space, and for other public purposes to be developed, including without limitation park(s), recreational facilities, hiking/biking trails, and other purposes for the betterment of the city.” It directs City Attorney Steve Cobb to “commence condemnation of the real property commonly known as North Hills Country Club in the name of the city or alternatively in the name of the Sherwood Public Facilities Board on behalf of the city.”
In addition, the council voted to retain the services of law firm Quattlebaum, Grooms, Tull and Burrow PLLC of Little Rock to provide assistance to Cobb in condemning the former country club. Attorney Timothy Grooms of the firm said one of the city’s next steps will be filing a notice of condemnation on the property. Grooms and Harmon said they expect the filing process to begin within days.
Harmon said another important step will be a trial so a jury can determine what is fair and full compensation to the country club’s owners.
“That is part of the process of condemnation and eminent domain,” Harmon said.
According to the city ordinance, “The acquisition and preservation of the real property … is deemed a necessity for the best interests of the citizens of Sherwood and an emergency is hereby
declared.”
While the seven participating aldermen voted unanimously for the ordinance, not everyone at the table agreed with the effort led by Harmon and Vassar.
Mayor Virginia Hillman said she believed the issue should be placed before the vote of the people to see Sherwood’s residents want to spend their tax dollars to buy the ground.
“This could have been placed on the ballot on July 10 [last year] when there was a special vote for a new mayor,” Hillman said.
Sulcer, who had abstained, said she didn’t agree with the city condemning the property and claiming eminent domain.
“I have agreed with some of the statements made by Alderman Harmon, and some of them I have not,” she said after Harmon made a five-minute speech about how vital the North Hills grounds were to the city.
On Tuesday, property co-owner Rodgers cited the mayor’s disagreement with the council’s vote, but also said that he felt the council had condemned his property long before Monday’s vote.
“When they placed the [development] moratorium on the property [last summer], that’s when it was condemned,” he said.
That moratorium resulted in a planned sale of the property being stopped just a few days before it was supposed to close, said Rodgers.
Now the owners aren’t sure how they will proceed since the property has officially been condemned.
“They [the aldermen] were consulting lawyers as they did what they did, so I am sure it was legal,” Rodgers said.
He added that Club Properties is going to continue pursuing a federal lawsuit they have filed against the city, which states the owners were harmed by the moratorium. The suit claims financial losses were incurred, including the loss of a sale, the land remaining idle for several months and while interest accrued on loans.
Rodgers said he and his partners want to be fairly compensated for the land. He said their own appraisal concluded that the property is worth $5.5 million.
“We also had three offers on the property and all came close to that,” Rodgers added.
Harmon said the property has a very important historic value to the Sherwood community.
“The founders of Sherwood built the city of Sherwood around North Hills,” Harmon said.
He said cities across the nation have used eminent domain to take property they felt was needed for projects that were in the best interests of their cities.
“If you didn’t have eminent domain, not one of your major cities across the country would look like it does today,” he said.
Harmon said the city has the opportunity to develop the property in ways that Sherwood residents decades from now can enjoy.
“There are many who felt they didn’t want us to let this opportunity slip away from us,” he said.
Vassar said she is delighted with the vote, saying the future generations of Sherwood would thank city leaders for taking the action.
Harmon said he believes Club Properties would not have much luck if they challenged the condemnation. He said the only two defenses against eminent domain are if the proposed use for the property is not for the community, or if the owners are not being adequately compensated.
Harmon also disagreed with Hillman’s notion of putting the issue to a public vote.
“That is why you elect your representatives, so they make decisions,” he said.
Harmon said several purchases made by the city in the past 15 years did not include a public vote, including the Bill Harmon Recreation Center, Sherwood Forest and the Jack Evans Senior Citizens Center. None of those purchases involved eminent domain, according to Cobb.
Alderman Keith Rankin, who seconded Vassar’s motion to condemn the property, said he supported the condemnation because the city was going to have to pay millions in public dollars dealing with drainage issues caused if the former country club was converted into a residential housing development.
“I figure if we are going to have to spend tax dollars anyway, we might as well have something to show for it,” Rankin said.
