Both sides of Pleasant Street

Landowners assert constitutional right along path of new road

By STU CLAMPITT
news@readthereporter.com

Road construction inevitably brings frustration and annoyance – and that’s just the annual road repair and maintenance. Frustration increases exponentially when we talk about constructing a new road where none existed before. Such is the case with the Pleasant Street project.

The City of Noblesville sees a need to reduce traffic along State Road 32 through downtown. That is because of both the natural population growth and housing developments near downtown.

Citizens have seen beloved businesses closed and torn down to make way for the Pleasant Street project. Homes have been demolished to make way. Additionally, some property owners have found it necessary to appeal their rights of ownership in order to get just compensation for the acquisition of their land by the city along the path of a new road.

Part of the path of the Pleasant Street project runs along a former Conrail railroad line. Part of that same rail line was previously folded into the Midland Trace Trail. That rail line is where the property rights issues arose for landowners.

By 1982, Conrail abandoned the railway and the right of way attached to it.

In Indiana, when a rail is abandoned, the rights to that land are supposed to be transferred to the adjacent property owners. At least some of the Conrail line in Noblesville was deeded to the city, instead of to the property owners on the north and south sides.

“Legal requirements and processes involving abandoned and repurposed railroad lines are multi-faceted and can depend on a number of factors,” city officials told The Reporter. “Given the passage of time since parcels were transferred in the 1990s, it is unclear why some of the steps were taken.  Nonetheless, when city representatives in more recent years developed plans for a trail corridor and road project, we engaged a title and acquisition team to work with internal staff to ensure appropriate steps were taken to acquire necessary land through development dedications, acquisition through eminent domain processes, or agreements with landowners. That process included some situations where it was determined that parcels should have been conveyed to adjacent landowners, and in those situations we reflected that ownership interest in our steps to appraise and pay just compensation for the acquisition.”

GIS records

Looking at Hamilton County GIS records (geographic information systems) through the online portal at gis1.hamiltoncounty.in.gov/generalviewer, there are several tracts of land along the Pleasant Street project path from Hague Road, across White River and all the way to South 5^th Street that have no ownership information available.

Some of that unlisted land lies between Westridge South Drive and Doves Court on the west side of River Road. The path east of River Road all the way to South 5^th Street also has no ownership information or ownership transfer history.

“These unlisted parcels are part of the property that was acquired for Phase 1 of Pleasant Street, which were acquired through legal process from the owners of record or were determined to have been appropriately transferred from the railroad based on the factors regarding the parcels,” the city said. “For example, the plat for the River Run addition provides for a boundary termination at the north line of the vacated railroad right of way. Our title history work indicates that the city has ownership of the north side of the vacated railroad that borders this subdivision. GIS records may not be fully updated yet to reflect city ownership for the road project.”

Maxwell Machinery

Maxwell Machinery, 17350 River Road, Noblesville, sits on one such tract of land.

Larry Maxwell owns Maxwell Machinery. He told The Reporter he had to go through a lengthy process to get his property rights back from the city, and he did so, in part, by following the example of someone else who had the same problem.

“Gary Trump’s property was behind us,” Maxwell told The Reporter. “His dad, Steve Trump, told us the court has defined it that when the railroad was supposed to deed it [abandoned rail line land] to somebody, it was supposed to be to the adjacent landowners, but they didn’t do that. They deeded it to the city. So, the city had the deed.”

Steve Trump wanted to talk to then City Attorney Mike Howard to get ownership of what should have been his property from the city. Unable to get an appointment, Trump simply sat down in the office and waited to talk to Howard in person. Several hours of sitting later, he got his chance to talk to Howard and eventually got a quitclaim deed from the city to get property rights over the abandoned rail land.

“I called down there and said I wanted to talk,” Maxwell said. “They started giving me the runaround and I said, ‘You know what, I’ll just come on down and I can wait like Steve Trump did.’ That was it. I got my paperwork in the next two days.”

Maxwell accomplished his goals without using an attorney. He spent his own time doing research and filing everything on his own.

When asked about the Maxwell property, city officials told The Reporter, “This property was part of Phase 1 of Pleasant Street and was acquired from Larry Maxwell. This is another example of a parcel that was initially deeded from the railroad to the city and was later determined that it should have been transferred instead to the adjacent landowner. That transfer to the private landowner was later effectuated.”

Westbrook Village

Hearing that story, Jason Spartz raised an interesting question.

“How many parcels along the path of that whole road have they done that to and nobody raised an issue?” Spartz asked.

Westbrook Village is owned by the Spartz family. They own the land on both the north and south side of a long stretch of the path of the new road.

Jason Spartz told The Reporter of his own fight to get his family’s property rights to the rail land restored. In his case, he spoke to representatives of the county and, by citing other property owners who had similar issues, also got his family’s property rights restored in anticipation of an eminent domain process before the road can be built.

When asked about the parcels that are now listed on the GIS system as belonging to Westbrook Village, but which show an ownership transfer history from the city – not Conrail, city officials told The Reporter, “This is an example of a parcel that was initially deeded from the railroad to the city, and was later determined that it should have been transferred instead to the adjacent landowner. That transfer to the private landowner was later effectuated.”

The transfer was indeed effectuated, but it was done so because a landowner raised the issue and made it happen. It was not done because the city approached the Spartz family in a proactive attempt to restore their rights.

The Reporter also reached out to another landowner along the path of Pleasant Street, but because their dispute involved court action and their settlement with the city has a clause about contact with the media, The Reporter can only say that Maxwell and the Spartz family are not the only ones who have had to force the city to either restore or justly compensate them for their land rights.

“How it is even possible in a community that is supposedly led by conservative Republicans that we even question who owns the property?” Jason Spartz asked. “I’ve been largely quiet about this to everyone except my friends of course, but when you’re targeted in a way that I feel violates my Fifth Amendment rights as well as other landowners’ Fifth Amendment rights, I get offended.”

Fifth Amendment

According to the Fifth Amendment, “No person shall …  be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

“If the city was behaving in a manner you would expect from a truly conservative Republican leadership, this would not be an ongoing issue,” Jason Spartz told The Reporter.

When asked how many parcels along the former Conrail line were transferred to the city and have not been transferred to the adjacent property owners, or the adjacent landowners have not been compensated for their land because they have not challenged it, the city said, “For the Pleasant Street project we have proactively researched parcel history and have either acquired 74 parcels from the deeded owner – are in the process of acquiring additional land – or acquired them from the person who we determined should have been listed as the parcel owner, using applicable legal processes and agreements.”

If you own land along the former Conrail line, it might be a good idea to look into your property ownership rights and help ensure the city does in fact use “applicable legal processes and agreements” to get you the just compensation you deserve according the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

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Suing for property rights

West of the Pleasant Street project, Dennis Millikan was justly given the property rights for a portion of the south side of the former Conrail line that bordered on land he owned. He sold the south side to the city for the Midland Trace Trail, but he had to sue for rights to the north side of the rail land, which the city bought from KACE LLC, who did not in fact own the property.

In this case, the land rights are in dispute in a very different way, and an appellate decision has given him the rights to his land. Now he will work on getting just compensation for the portion on the north side of the rail line and recovering some of his legal fees.

You can read the entire court of appeals decision in Millikan at tinyurl.com/MillikanAppeal.

Before 2020, an eminent domain dispute in Indiana was given no right to appeal at the state level, meaning any decision by the local court in the jurisdiction where the dispute occurred was final. Also, in any dispute with local government, anyone suing the local government had no right to recover their own legal fees.

Thanks to Senate Bill 340, authored by then-Indiana State Senator Victoria Spartz and signed into law in 2020, Millikan was able to go to the state court of appeal, where he eventually won his case, and also has the option to recover up to $25,000 in legal fees.

Millikan has $36,000 in legal fees in his case, of which he can recover up to $25,000. Unless his compensation for his land is greater than $11,000, he will come out behind in his battle to assert his Fifth Amendment rights.

The scales are still tipped heavily on the side of local government when it comes to eminent domain disputes, but at least the decision by the local courts can be appealed and some portion of legal fees can be recovered. Still, Millikan will likely come out behind financially in his attempt to force the city to pay him for land that belonged to him, which the city bought from someone who did not own it in the first place.