was there a clause that if it isnt used as intended, it return to the owner?
a while back when i was a animal physio class a university, the profess told how he knew someone about to retire/Will but he wanted to donate it to STANFORD on the sole purpose of it being used as a research station in some island/country. the guy somehow heard the stanford lawyers said they were going to sell it or rent it out instead right behind his back. he gave it to Berkley university instead to be used for science.
the moral of the story make sure you have something in place so that the land/property being donated is used properly by a lawyer or a trust org.
Universities are a business and have the morals of your generic street thug. Why anyone would consider donating anything to them is a mystery.
Mostly to get their kids guaranteed entry into the university.
Whistleblowers with morals are also more important that people realise.
Yeah, it’s a park… An industrial park
I can’t imagine a better way to ensure people don’t donate land ever again.
Word to the wise, get a good lawyer when doing things.
Stories like this always remind me of the Peter’s parking deck at GA Tech. The couple that donated the land wanted it to be a park, so that the students would have a green place to play and relax. Once Tech had the land, they put a parking deck there instead. But they put a basketball court on the top level so that they technically met the letter of the law.
In fairness, as a student I needed that parking deck way more than I needed the park.
omg, never knew about this donation. Sad, but also in the spirit of an engineer doing absolute minimum to pass compliance while achieving what you need. Whats the good word!
The said part there is truly that the you needed a parking lot more than greenspace.
Pave paradise and put up a
parking lotdata center🎶 shoo-bop-bop-bop-bop 🎶
She trusted the government I don’t understand what Went wrong
I’m curious what would be the better approach if someone wanted to donate land to be used for a park? Give it to a charity? Or somehow find the cash and just build the park yourself and let people visit your land?
My town had a guy that loved baseball a long time ago, he had money and wanted it local so he built a baseball field right on the river, made a big park and donated it to the city. He was pretty smart about it and worked the deed so that it would take a two-third vote of the citizens to sell it.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago and the mayor petitioned the governor to change the deed under an NDA as he wanted to lease the park to a minor league baseball team. In the deal he also gave them the naming rights for the park, so the baseball team renamed the park after a local bank that gave them money.
Damn, you really can’t control your legacy, huh?
It would be easier if you weren’t dead
Depends how it was dontated, you can specify a loan of the land indefinetly to the city as long as its use is xyz.
If its a straight donation with no caveats attached then the city can do what it wants
My local council tried to build on some park land donated 100 years ago but the donator had specified its usage in the donation so they got shut down pretty hard.
Unfortunately it seems like the donator specified the usage in this case as well, but the courts are straight up ignoring it.
On July 7, 1999, Bland’s descendants granted 87.97 acres of land to the “Texas Parks and Recreation Foundation, a Texas non-profit corporation, to be held in trust for future use as parkland by Williamson County, Texas,” according to a copy of the deed reviewed by 404 Media.
deleted by creator
tax benefits to donations, as opposed to maintaining it
For a financial benefit, a sale beats a donation.
Sell a part of your land and use the money to build a park on the rest.
I’ve seen this story a few times now. Is there (gonna be) a court case, or is that it?
Nobody got any fight in them anymore. Which is how they like it.
404 Media is journalist-founded and supported by reader subscriptions. They are four high quality investigators doing amazing work (they work with a couple of other people on some stories).
If you can’t afford it, I understand. I share archive links all the time. For anyone with a few extra bucks who cares about quality reporting by people with integrity, this is easily one of the best options around. I’ve been extremely happy knowing they exist. (Gets you extra content from their podcast, too.)
I generally hate the principle of subscriptions + ads + paywalling stuff to viewers but not to crawlers, it’s pretty much double-dipping while baiting people for SEO.
On the other hand, I understand that in this day and age keeping a news outlet afloat without “outside influence” requires doing stuff like this. It’s a hard thing to balance but in either case I appreciate the insight from your comment, I admit I didn’t look them up and I figured they were just another money-hungry megacorp-owned outlet.
And I have no problem with that. I sort of found out who they were by accident cause they had a trend of good stories getting posted here and at some point I auditioned their podcast where they mention that.
Anyone got old Indian burial grounds to donate for a data center?
Best I can do are some bats and protected plants.
Don’t even mention:
Datacenters Behaving Like Acoustic Weapons
She’s gonna get a share of the lease revenue on that, right?
…right?
they’re not even leasing. It’s a flat sale. For a measly 10 million
Even if they didn’t do her dirty, she wouldn’t. She donated it to the city and relinquished ownership of it. The expectation, even written into the deed, was that the land was to be used as a park, but they turned around and sold it multiple times. Despite the stipulation in the original deed to the parks and recreation department, the data center is still going forward.
The story is just such a tragedy all around.
Huh, I’m not an attorney but that sure seems actionable if the intended use was documented in a contract.
You don’t get it, they will build a data center park!
She’s got an attorney and they’re trying to stop it based on that, but it just seems like everyone involved (edit: besides her) just doesn’t give a fuck.
Interesting to witness societal decay in real time.
They’ve been taught that if they ignore the law and do whatever they want to they don’t get punched in the face.
That will only go on for so long but it’s going to suck until someone gets punchy.
Especially with the recent East Wing argument, the lesson is “if you do it fast enough and ignore other people getting angry about it, you can do whatever you want.”
The only reason they ever didn’t ignore people getting angry about things was because when people used to get angry they also got shooty.
gimme some wiskey and point them out, I get punchy, 1 shot or 20
What’s the saying? “Ownership is 90% posession.”
Like with the stuff going on at the East Wing or the Kennedy Center, some people just move forward even if they’re not allowed to because chances are they won’t be stopped or penalized.
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_is_nine-tenths_of_the_law
The relevant case law may be found in Molotov vs. New Construction .
Can’t find what it was, what did that one end with?
A bang
Oh, that, well it was definitely a hit
While in many ways it is a tragedy, the cure is often worse. I on balance oppose deed restrictions, either you own the land and pay taxes, or you give up all control. Deed restrictions just force future generations to live by your values and that is a bad thing.
As for your last line there, forcing future generations to live by the values of having a park isn’t a bad thing.
What makes you so sure? I mean, I would hope that future generations will have parks, but we don’t know what the future is going to be like. There may be some consideration that we couldn’t even conceive of that would make it not a good thing for them to have a park. Or maybe parks are considered good in future generations, but there’s a reason that that is a particularly bad spot to have a park.
It’s a lot like another commenter mentioned about eminent domain. It can be used for good (roads, fiber deployments, district heating, etc) but also for things not so good (data centers, etc).
I went out of my way to find a house that didn’t even have a vestigial HOA deed restriction, so I get that. But when a private citizen donates something to the local municipality, it’s pretty egregious to not honor those restrictions, especially for things that may take a while to develop.
I’d donate my share of my family’s farmland to build a park, but I wouldn’t sell it for all the money in the world to build a datacenter or landfill or anything else, really.
It is a jerk move for sure and the voters should be mad about this. If you can’t keep your word without a contract that says a lot about your lack of honor.
I’m talking pure legality here though. The cities actions are legal and should be. They are however dishonorable and nobody should deal with the city again.
No takey-backs! ✝️
Best they can do is no trees, half of everyone riding mobility scooters and neighbors with dogs that can poop EVERYWHERE.
Nice try, Big Dungbeatle Inc. 😑
One of the more fucked up aspects of eminent domain. City/county/state governments can nuke deeds by using eminent domain. It allows them to turn a plot of land, regardless prior restrictions, into things like dumps.
The fucked up part about it is they can also turn public lands into private lands with that same trick.
What’s frustrating is we still need eminent domain for good. It’s basically the only way to build railways and roads. It even ends up being one of the few ways to deploy things like district heating/cooling and new fiber lines.
Serving the public interest is not already a prerequisite? Surely gov’t cannot arbitratily pull this card?
I might be talking out of my ass but i’m pretty sure using imminent domain is not only needed for matters of public interest but specifically needs to be backed by it when you want to use it.
Eminent domain didn’t factor into this particular case. The Taylor Economic Development Corporation simply ignored the deed and sold the land to BPP Projects LLC/Blueprint while Taylor City Council and Judge Ryan Larson approved and upheld it respectively.
I believe eminent domain should have a very limited scope legally and should mostly only be used for public infrastructure projects and housing honestly…
But AI is Public Infrastructure.
/s^just in case
We have different definitions of good. I don’t see how building a highway system through other animals homes is considered “good”.
A road in of itself is definitely a public interest…
Where they should and should not be built is another discussion.
Agree to disagree. I don’t believe humans own the earth.
