A local corporation has filed litigation against the city of Hot Springs alleging breach of contract and denial of constitutional rights arising from its lack of access to municipal water and sewer connections outside the city limits.
The complaint was filed Friday in Garland County Circuit Court against the Hot Springs Board of Directors, Interim City Manager Bill Burrough and the city of Hot Springs by Maze LLC, which was incorporated by Barry J. Wright, who owns more than 50 acres of land along Pittman Road in the unincorporated area of Garland County.
Maze seeks injunctive relief, declaratory judgment, for mandamus, for trespass and ejectment, and for damages arising from inverse condemnation, breach of agreement and denial of constitutional rights.
City Attorney Brian Albright said Monday he was in Washington, D.C., and had not yet seen the complaint.
The complaint states that Maze has on one occasion in the past three years had a formal offer to purchase its lands by a large retail chain seeking a new location in Garland County.
Maze "caused engineering work-ups to be created, and as a precondition for seller's willingness to close, sought the approval of the Hot Springs Board of Directors for the water and sewer tie-ins necessary for the project," the complaint against the city alleges.
That request was placed on the board's meeting agenda but removed before the meeting, which denied Maze the right to have its request heard, it says.
The original purchase agreement was with Elrod Real Estate LLC, who then assigned the purchase agreement to Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust, according to exhibits included with the lawsuit.
The complaint also states that, on another occasion in the past three years, Maze attempted to present engineering plans for a residential subdivision on its acreage, caused engineering work-ups to be created, sought board approval for water and sewer tie-ins for the project.
That request was also placed on the board's agenda but removed before the meeting, it alleges.
"Potable water service and sanitary sewer services are basic necessities for the development and economic enjoyment of undeveloped lands, without which economic utilization beyond use as grazing or pasture cannot be made and without which land can be rendered without value or with little value," the complaint says.
It also says that, in 2013, the city resurrected its policy of requiring annexation or execution of a pre-annexation agreement as a precondition to receipt of water from the regional treatment plants, or discharge of sewer effluent into the regional wastewater treatment system.
It also alleges that the city had agreed to provide water and sewer service to the Highway 70 west water and sewer improvement districts when it accepted the infrastructure installed and paid for by the homeowners in the districts.
"In its recently enacted policy, Hot Springs has cited a shortage in treatment capabilities compared to demand in its denials of extraterritorial requests for both water and sewer," the complaint says. "However, by its own explicit policies and in actual practice, Hot Springs has notwithstanding continued to grant water and sewer service tie-ins to customers within Hot Springs, while denying such service to nonresidents; and the engineering data does not bear out the city's assertions that a shortage crisis prevents additional tie-ins, though that data has been manipulated by the city to make it appear that way."
The suit alleges that the city, by its regional water and sewer utility departments, has "deliberately and consciously recommenced enforcement of a policy which seeks to grow and benefit the city by intentionally discriminating against nonmunicipal end-users to the benefit of municipal end-users."
These policies constitute "an involuntary taking" of the plaintiff's property rights, the complaint alleges.
The complaint claims that Maze is entitled to a money judgment for past deprivation of economic use, damages estimated to be in excess of $675,000 in diminishment in value, plus in excess of $25,000 paid in improvement district taxes and interest.
Local on 03/08/2016