Yesterday the N&R reported opponents of the proposed Friendly Avenue-Hobbs Road development are threatening legal action. Today’s above-the-fold story in the print edition reveals restrictive covenants dictating the land be used only for residential development:
Starmount Co. owned and subdivided the land for single-family houses in the late 1930s. The company sold the lots with certain restrictions, which were recorded in the deeds of sale.
Those restrictive covenants spell out how the land can be developed and used. They have no expiration date.
…..A product of a racially segregated era, the covenants also direct that no person “of negro descent shall own said property or occupy the same except as domestic servants.” That covenant is no longer enforceable because of a long-ago ruling on racial restrictions by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Note one commenter says he “saw one of the deeds in question from 1938” and it “appears that the restrictions expired on that deed in 1963. Looks like a 25 year term on the deed restrictions.”
As we all know, anything can be challenged and overturned in court these days. Stay tuned.
