Posted on 12/12/2004 10:26:28 AM PST by Diddle E. Squat
To call Lev Rozin's back yard an urban paradise might be an exaggeration. But with its swimming pool, fig tree, ginger plants and rose bushes, it's a pleasant refuge.
Some days, there's nothing finer than to kick back, watch Lord Axel, the Great Dane, frolic on the grass and listen to the wind in the power lines.
Rozin's playground is CenterPoint Energy's right of way, and for years the relationship between the utility and Rozin's neighborhood has been congenial.
With the company's permission, at least 22 residents on Twin Hills in southwest Houston extended their back yards onto the utility's 150-foot-wide right of way.
They fenced and landscaped the property and came to consider it the next best thing to their own.
Now CenterPoint wants its land back.
The resulting clash has been contentious. Volleys of letters have been fired back and forth. A meeting between contesting parties was scheduled, then canceled. Residents have circulated a petition, hired a lawyer and launched a media campaign.
Ten days ago — after a one-month delay brokered by City Councilman Mark Goldberg — CenterPoint crews began reclaiming their lost ground.
"We are moving ahead with our plans," said CenterPoint spokeswoman Emily Mir-Thompson, predicting fences will be moved, shrubbery relocated and trees cut or trimmed by early January.
Though the utility has not identified right of way irregularities in other parts of its 1.8 million-customer Houston service area, "it's something that we're looking at citywide," Mir-Thompson said.
For Rozin, adjustment of the property line will cost him about 50 feet of land, essentially cutting his back yard in half.
The new fence will be just inches beyond the back edge of his swimming pool. The landscaped yard Rozin used as a dog run will be gone.
"They want to make me give up my dog," he said.
"Every time time I see a CenterPoint truck on the street, I hate it," said the 64-year-old. "Everytime I see CenterPoint power lines, I hate them. I've gotten to the point that I even hate electricity. I'm going to sit in my house lit by candles. That's what all of this has done to me."
Lines being drawn
For Rozin, a five-year resident of 7711 Twin Hills, and his neighbors, the battle is of David versus Goliath proportion. CenterPoint, they claim, has been imperious and unyielding, more inclined to issue edicts than negotiate.
To CenterPoint, the issue is access to its equipment and safety — a special concern, it says, after blackouts left a dozen major U.S. and Canadian cities, including New York, without electricity, in the summer of 2003. "We take all actions to ensure that our operations are safe, reliable and economical," said Mir-Thompson, "and part of that effort is maintaining the integrity of our property and rights of way."
CenterPoint also is concerned, Mir-Thompson said, that backyard fences are too close to power lines.
Both sides agree that Houston Lighting and Power, a CenterPoint corporate ancestor, orally gave residents permission to fence and use portions of their land more than 20 years ago. In return, homeowners pledged to maintain the property, build wide gates in their fences to allow entry of service trucks and refrain from building permanent structures on utility property.
"They didn't just move their fences a couple of feet," Mir-Thompson said. "They moved their fences 20 or 30 feet onto our land."
What the deeds say
Property deeds for the residences — many current residents bought their homes long after the original agreement — clearly stipulate that some of the land belongs to the power company, Mir-Thompson said.
No one knows if the agreement specified how long residents might have free use of the utility's land.
The only letter formalizing the arrangement, written by an HL&P executive to Harold Falk, the original owner of Rozin's home, has been lost.
"No one here has ever thought that land was our property," said Rozin's neighbor, Judith Watson, whose husband has lived on Twin Hills since 1971. "We are capable of reading a plat."
Watson suggested that for years the utility seemed almost indifferent to its property. When she contacted HL&P after Hurricane Alicia flattened her existing fence in 1983, she said an official assured her she could extend her backyard "all the way across" the right of way.
Mir-Thompson said CenterPoint thinks residents' free use of the Twin Hills right of way is unfair to other ratepayers.
Situation comes to light
CenterPoint became aware of the Twin Hills situation earlier this year when a tree-trimming crew was denied access to the right of way by an irate resident, Mir-Thompson said. Rozin countered that the resident had protested the trimming, but had not denied utility employees access to the property.
Mir-Thompson maintained most residents are sympathetic to the utility's goal, noting only seven families of 22 declined a free offer to build a new wooden privacy fence on the adjusted property line. Rozin responded that all but one family opposes the utility's action, although some felt intimidated and agreed to the deal.
Rozin said 12 families have contributed to a legal fund and others have indicated a willingness to do so. More than 40 area residents have signed a petition calling on CenterPoint to halt fence removal and negotiate an amicable settlement.
"What we want," Watson said, "is maintenance of the status quo."
The utility canceled a meeting between residents and a CenterPoint executive over the issue when it learned outsiders might be present.
Rozin said the outsiders were a television news crew, but denied any knowledge of the reporters' plans to cover the meeting.
Councilman steps in
John Collins, CenterPoint's right of way representative, notified residents in September that fence work and removal of "encroachments" would begin Nov. 1. That date was pushed back a month after both sides discussed the matter in a meeting mediated by Goldberg.
"We can't do anything but bring the concerns of the neighbors to CenterPoint," Goldberg said, "and basically use our position as city officials to just request that CenterPoint act in in a reasonable manner. I think that unless CenterPoint has a planned use for that property that they don't have to proceed in such an expeditious manner. It's my understanding that right now they don't have any plans. ... They cited some safety regulations. I have not been told that the current use (of the property) violates any specific regulations."
Mir-Thompson said National Electric Safety Code regulations require fences to be a certain distance from power lines.
"They want to make me give up my dog," he said. "Every time time I see a CenterPoint truck on the street, I hate it," said the 64-year-old. "Everytime I see CenterPoint power lines, I hate them. I've gotten to the point that I even hate electricity. I'm going to sit in my house lit by candles. That's what all of this has done to me."
Reminds me of the story of Jonah and the vine.
We don't quote Gore Vidal here.
Wow. Today I am educated!
Ooops...got the "preview" and "post" crossed...He is an absolute moron, and don't want him trying to be associated with real property rights groups.
What a bunch of whining crooks!
If the positions were reversed, they would have my support 100%.
In spite of the writer's attempt to make these homeowners the "good" guys and generate sympathy, the reverse happened with me. It is clear that everyone was aware that it was not their land, but boo hoo! they are taking away half of my back yard! My poor dog!
Come on. Who buys property and doesn't verify immediately how closely reality fits what they paid for?
The city or county is complicit here too. Unless pools and other permanent items are built without a permit, there are setback requirements that are imposed. If there are none, then it's the owners' responsibilty to move stuff if too close to the property line or actually encroaching on others' property.
End of story.
KEWL!... 8^)
.....NEAT! :^)
As the headline suggests, no good deed goes unpunished; I could add: the average homeowner is basically dishonest.
Sounds like adverse possession to me, if the power company actually owns the land.
Then again, where we live, the power company does not own the land under the half mile or so of lines that cross our property; they only have a right-of-way for access and maintenance: a deeded "right" of "way" meaning a right to passage or travel, or for other specified restricted use, for specific purposes, in a legally delineated & described path.
It is not legal, IOW for us to prevent them from doing what is necessary to their business on that specific strip of land; by the same token it is not legal for them to enter that right-of-way for any other purposes, such as hunting; nor, for example, to fence us or grazing cattle out of it; nor to give permission to others to wander through. Neither do they own anything growing on the strip, though they have a right to keep it from interfering with their lines. They may cut a tree, but we own the wood.
I have been involved in a lot of street and sewer work that is done in old rights-of-way, easements, or sometimes condemnation. The stuff in this article happens ALL THE TIME. People everywhere seem to have the need to extend their fences into property they don't own.
I understand that the last successful adverse possession in my state (Nebraska) took place in 1947. These people could not claim adverse possession here for several reasons. One, they did not pay taxes on it. Another is that they were given permission (verbal or otherwise). Still another is that adverse possession cannot be done by private individuals against a public entity (as most utilitites are). It will cost the ratepayers regardless, but the property owners here are in the wrong.
Uh ... Great Danes don't "Frolic".
BTTT!!!!!!!
How's the latin go, something like "nullum
tempus occurit regi" [Time does not run against the King].
Perhaps. However, time also does not run against the People. Allowing private individuals "squatters rights" or "adverse posession" against public land would mean that the people would have to pay for it at least twice (once when first obtained and once again when it is obtained from the squatters). I don't want MY tax money to be spent in this way.
BTW, as far as I am concerned, the words "squatters rights" or "adverse posession" are exactly the same as "stealing".
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