Posted on 03/14/2010 8:35:30 AM PDT by Saije
The dream house — for that’s what it was — has commanded a bit of high ground in rural Cass County for eight years.
Four levels, not counting the basement, 10,000 square feet, a deck reaching toward the 25-acre lake, much of it built by the hands of Dick and Joyce Robinson.
But the size of the Robinson place is not what awes.
It’s that no one has ever slept in it, and, quite possibly, no one ever will.
Look out a window to the west. Just over a ridge you see what appears to be a typical Missouri timber patch of scruffy trees and brush.
But take a view from 200 miles up. Satellite imagery reveals the wooded area to be a 184-acre octagon. From the vantage point of space it looks like a huge, green stop sign.
Apropos. Because the owner of those woods, the U.S. Army, stopped the Robinsons cold from ever laying their heads on pillows inside their mansion on a hill.
The two sides have been warring for years.
The struggle has been so bitter that at least twice, law enforcement intervened to quell confrontations between family members and soldiers.
At the root of the conflict is a security easement that surrounds the Army’s octagon-shaped training area that dates to the Cold War. The Robinsons built their dream home smack dab in the middle of the easement.
While the Robinsons own the easement land, the military has made the rules there for a half century, decades before the Robinsons bought the land. One of those rules: No human habitation.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Because of your post, I went ahead and read the article. These people are nuts! On the one hand, they should be compensated for not being able to use their land, or maybe the purchase price reflected compensation.
On the other hand, they knew they couldn’t live in the home, and yet blame the Army for keeping them out. Let me guess ....they’re Dimocrats??
These people are idiots. Easements are well-spelled out and defined.
The article implies that this couple bought this land really cheaply because of the easement and then tried to beat the clock - by craftily building the house during a period when ownership of the nearby facility shifted from the Air Force to the Army. The guy is even quoted in the article as saying: "I gambled."
I work at a hospital that has been in the same location for over 100 years. Some people bough an old house right next door and then they bitterly complained about the noise from medical evacuation helicopters.
What part of, "We and our easement rights were here first" do they not understand?
The easement existed at the time they purchased the land. The former owners of record in 1955 had been "compensated" for the value of the easement at that time.
They were "compensated" by the reduced sale price of the land that resulted from such a easement.
When you buy property with an easement, you buy it "as is". The purchase price reflects that.
If, on the other hand, the realtor did not disclose the easement or did a sloppy title search, then they can sue the realtor for fraud or negligence.
The Army has no liability in this. They have had their easement rights for decades, maybe since before these people were even born.
Just speculation on my part:
The Army doesn’t have any nearby units that might require this “training area”. I suspect that the Army is just the caretaker. So why the sensitivity? Kansas City has long been the location for the design and manufacture of triggers for nuclear weapons. They probably need a place where they can test certain procedures, such a place needs to be out of public view, but fairly close to the plant.
This bozo can kiss his house goodbye.
Yeah, what right have they to complain, what with those helicopters taking off and landing for more than a century!
Regards,
People do it all the time to individuals. This time they just picked on someone bigger that they can’t beat.
Here in Texas, people from all-over but Californians are the worst, will move next to a farm that has been there before they came. Then they complain to the city about the barn looking like a barn or the small of the animals over & over until they win.
The land is next to the old Richards Gabauer Air Force which is being redeveloped for Allied Siginal’s Dep of Energy Nuke Trigger development factory.
The took a risk when the built their house. They knew what the easement was about as the guy was a home builder. He made a dumb mistake in thinking the Gov would vacat the easement. He should get nothing for being a fool.
Maybe so,but when the holder of the easement is the United States Department of Defense one would reasonably expect less "latitude"...a *lot* less.
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