Officials make legal decision in Tara lawsuit. County attorney warns it’s not over

A 7-year-old lawsuit is likely to head back to court after the Board of County Commissioners rejected the county attorney’s recommended settlement agreement to allow a drug store at the corner of Tara Boulevard and State Road 70.

Assistant County Attorney Bill Clague warned that no matter which decision they made at Thursday’s land use meeting, the case would probably come before a judge again. Commissioners voted 4-3 to go against the advice of their legal counsel by accepting an intervenor’s settlement agreement to limit development on the property to residential or residential support uses only.

Commissioners Priscilla Whisenant Trace, Stephen Jonsson and Betsy Benac cast dissenting votes.

With a show of waving hands and silent celebration, about 50 Tara residents expressed their content with the agreement, which commissioners hope would result in the developer coming before them again with a residential development plan.

Instead, board members hope to go through three more public hearings — one with the planning commission and two more with county commissioners — that would give the land owner the chance to develop a residential use on the 3.3 acres in question instead.

However, Clague noted that the landowner has previously said the decision wouldn’t be an adequate solution.

The pending lawsuit stems from the county’s 2012 decision to deny the development of what was slated to be a drug store. Patricia Petruff, the applicant’s legal counsel, argued that the corner is already a commercial node where the county has welcomed similar uses.

“(The planned development) is where this commission has determined commercial should be located,” Petruff said.

The county’s resistance, however, stems from a decades-old development of regional impact agreement that shifted the commercial use to the east and prevented development on that corner because of the wetland impact.

Thursday’s development was a step in the right direction, commissioners said, noting that the board’s 2010 decision prevented any development, whether it was residential, commercial, office or otherwise. Clague said his suggestion to allow the commercial development came from his interest in protecting his client from a steep financial judgment and the potential for new precedent.

“A ruling against the county in this case could make it difficult to deny other similar cases,” Clague said during the first part of the settlement hearing on March 7. “The price could be very high. It could be much higher than just development in this single property.”

Commissioner Misty Servia, who worked on the project as a county planner when it was approved, said it was a tough decision to allow residential on the property but hopes the county can move forward and direct resources away from the lawsuit.

“I’m sad the bleeding hasn’t stopped because we’re going to have to continue working on this,” Servia said.

This story was originally published April 4, 2019 at 6:18 PM.