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#deed#land#city#park#texas#restrictions#where#more#town#property

Discussion (27 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

zug_zug•21 minutes ago
It's exhausting that the "solution" to problems like this is getting tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens stressed until enough public attention gives some small chance of redress. I'm not calling for violence, but if we can't get these things fixed in court there has to be a more effect and more forceful avenue for protest than venting on internet forums.
drekipus•12 minutes ago
It's actually just quicker and more effective to call for violence
sebastiennight•2 minutes ago
Today the Sagrada Familia, now the tallest church in the world, was inaugurated in Spain, 100 years after the death of its architect Gaudì.

Can you imagine the number of H100s we could have put in there if this was Texas?

enaaem•28 minutes ago
American zoning is weird. You can't walk to a grocery store, but you can walk to a data center.
logancbrown•7 minutes ago
You cant walk to a data center either
ortusdux•about 2 hours ago
hmokiguess•7 minutes ago
Can it be both? Trying to think of a data centre themed expedition now where you go visit the robots and interact with the machines
asdfman123•40 minutes ago
No good deed goes unpunished
unglaublich•9 minutes ago
If you want to have the moral authority over a gift, don't gift it.
preinheimer•4 minutes ago
Lots of endowments come with strings attached. We made a charitable donation to a local university for them to buy some specific science outreach equipment, they bought it.

This all seems reasonable to me. If you want my money or things, you’ll have to use them like I suggest.

crummy•1 minute ago
Why can’t gifts have contracts?
ionwake•4 minutes ago
Rumour was an old lady donated posthumously alot of money she had saved up her whole life, to build a university at Estepona in Spain.

After she died they never built it. The town remains pretty much the same as it always was.

Last time I was there they had replaced the red marble promenade that was cracked on the beach with some sort of rubber playground cement, and for some reason that I can only put down to malice, built a large statue that resembles a rat about 8 feet tall and placed it at the intersection of the promenade with the town center, where there used to be old spanish men and youths playing on many free foosball tables

Bear in mind this fishing town is next to Marbella perhaps the richest destination in the mediterranean.

Its almost as if as a child I fell asleep and woke up in a nightmare, when I visited.

Fortunately they left what remains of the old town alone and its still a beautiful (in parts) tourist destination.

trashface•about 1 hour ago
Yep its Texas.
Innittech•about 1 hour ago
Are deeds with conditions like that legal in that jurisdiction?
ryukoposting•42 minutes ago
IANAL but Texas law seems to allow a great deal of flexibility in deeds. One interesting quote I found:

> spelling out any additional agreements between the parties within the four corners of the deed itself can eliminate any doubt or ambiguity as to the content of those agreements.

The word "any" does some heavy lifting here, I'll admit.

> How can a grantor insure that the “as is” provision is unconditionally accepted by the grantee? The answer is to require that the grantee sign and acknowledge the deed

This quote is using as-is provisions since those are very common, but it seems like this doctrine applies to any condition in a deed.

Did a representative for the city ever sign the deed?

https://lonestarlandlaw.com/deeds-in-texas/

jeffbee•26 minutes ago
Property law in America is insane from all sides. It's one of the few countries where you can just say something is yours, and someone else can disagree, and you get to argue about it forever. The only reason it is like that is we are still pretending all lands belong to the King of England. We never went back and fixed it. Even England itself fixed this, but we're too stupid.
SwellJoe•about 1 hour ago
Except when they violate civil rights (i.e. "whites only" deed restrictions are not enforceable, though they do exist), I think the answer would generally be yes. In some places in Texas, there is no zoning, only deed restrictions, Houston being the largest city where that's so, though that has evolved a bit and the city does have more say about land use than in the past.

Anyway, deed restrictions run with the land and are legally binding on subsequent owners in Texas. Buying land is agreeing to the contract implied by the deed restrictions. It's part of the due diligence of acquiring land in Texas.

Of course, governments can change the terms of that kind of thing in some cases. But, I suspect any honest reading of this situation would have required the city to go through a public hearing process so that the neighbors of the property were aware and had a voice in the decision, at the very least (but maybe even with that, their was a clear agreement to reserve the land for parkland, they shouldn't have taken the land if that wasn't an acceptable obligation). Property rights and contract law are pretty sacred in Texas. I lean YIMBY about a lot of things, but this gets my hackles up. It looks illegal on its face and shouldn't have made it through the cities lawyers going over this deal.

Edit: I should also mention that it is literally the neighbors right/obligation to sue in these cases. I've seen the argument that the neighbors of the land don't have standing. But, for deed restrictions, the neighbors are exactly the people with standing to sue over violations of deed restrictions. Cities in Texas are not obligated to enforce deed restrictions in most cases and most do not, Houston is one major exception to that rule.

FireBeyond•7 minutes ago
> Except when they violate civil rights (i.e. "whites only" deed restrictions are not enforceable, though they do exist)

In my deeply blue city in my deeply blue city there were several HOAs with covenants around "non-whites" could only live in servants quarters on property, etc.

These clauses and covenants were non-enforceable, but when my city went after the HOAs to physically remove the clauses, they still encountered pockets of resistance, from "historical significance" to "what's the point, they're unenforceable" to "ugh, we'd have to hire attorneys to do that" to the point where the city had to announce sanctions ranging from fines up to investigating the possibility of forcible dissolution of the HOA.

Unenforceable or not, picture how welcome you'd feel as a POC reading that in the HOA covenants for a prospective home purchase.

Theodores•26 minutes ago
Totally unrelated fun story.

Recently I learned that the park nearest where my parents lived was named after a Mr Park, hence the name of the park, 'Park Gardens'.

It contains a war memorial, albeit with Mr Park's name on it, albeit his son. WW1 for you.

Up until 1920 the park was pasture, then Mr Park bought it and it was landscaped very nicely. Since then it has been a well maintained park and actively used.

For housing it would make a very good earner for the council, due to its location. As a data centre though? Only lots of bribery and tear gas would get that approved.

Once upon a time the park was just a farmer's field, for pasture. Nowadays it is proudly owned by the town and more than just land.

As for the story that 'land' might just be land, but, in time, it could have been another wonderful 'Park Gardens'.

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ChrisArchitect•about 1 hour ago
rvz•about 1 hour ago
New homes for AI agents.
type0•about 1 hour ago
Good deed for our robot overlords!
silexia•about 1 hour ago
Maybe this will fund a bigger better park with playgrounds and water features?
radley•43 minutes ago
It will, just not in the U.S. Probably in private resorts in Albania, Saudi Arabia, etc.
readthenotes1•about 1 hour ago
Possibly, but only if the mayor and a couple of city council members own the new land
casey2•28 minutes ago
How does a Farmer donate land? There is no legal system on the planet that lets you own land. You own a deed which the state can choose to enforce. This is basic property law.

Donate is doing a lot of lifting here, he probably hasn't paid taxes in years.

LocalH•26 minutes ago
Transfer the land to the city either for free or for a nominal fee, but with a covenant. City resells the land and ignores the covenant.

Yes, we know that title or deed is only as good as the enforcement behind it. But if governments discard that to enrich themselves, then that's what a certain amendment is for, as that is pure tyranny.