THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 14, 1996 TAG: 9608140320
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By KATRICE FRANKLIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 71 lines
After proposing regulations to prevent abuses of family land transfers, the city has filed a lawsuit accusing a Suffolk resident of transferring land to his wife and three daughters with intent to sell it.
The suit names J. Grant Huneycutt, a Suffolk business owner who transferred land on Five Mile Road to his wife, Betty C. Huneycutt, and to three daughters, Michele R. and Ginger E. Huneycutt and Donna H. Perry.
The transfers were approved by the city's Planning Department in August 1995, court records show. Two months later, J. Grant and Betty C. Huneycutt sold nearly six acres of the property to John E. and Jan R. Mulford for $400,000, even though deeds for the transfer were not recorded until April 1996.
No hearing date has been set.
For months now, the city has been trying to control family transfers after some developers were found to be using them to create subdivisions.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday, about 12 days before the Planning Commission is scheduled to consider a revised ordinance limiting family transfers. The commission will hold a public hearing on the ordinance Tuesday at 2 p.m. in City Council chambers in the municipal building.
The suit alleges that ``the family transfer plat without the transfer of title to the family member concerned and the marketing of the property, clearly reflects an intent to circumvent . . .'' the city's subdivision ordinance.
The court will consider whether the Huneycutts abused the current transfer ordinance when they sold their land. The city is also asking the court to prohibit the family from further subdividing the land on Five Mile Road and to ban Huneycutt from transferring any other land in the city to the same family members.
``Our family has had a lot of medical bills due to my son's having a heart transplant,'' Honeycutt said Tuesday. ``Our bills have totaled over $2,500,000. It has been a hardship on us and, due to that, we have had to sell our farm and home.''
Huneycutt's attorney, Jesse J. Johnson Jr., said his client will be taking action against the city.
Planning Director Paul E. Fisher said that, since filling his post, this is the first time the city had filed a lawsuit against a family land transfer.
``If we think there's been a violation of the subdivision ordinance, there is the option to use the court system,'' Fisher said.
Family transfers were created by the state to preserve family farm compounds. But in Suffolk, the only Virginia city that allows such transfers, some people have bought land and sold it after transferring it to family members - in some cases for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Sometimes the land is transformed into small subdivisions of no more than four homes.
The only access to them are dirt, sand or gravel roads that can be difficult for fire, police and rescue units to see and, in some instances, impossible to travel.
City officials say such subdivisions don't receive the same city services as others. Their developers don't have to maintain the roads, as they would if they submitted a subdivision plan.
Two months ago, the Planning Commission held a public hearing on proposed revisions to the current ordinance but delayed voting after residents argued that some changes would be too restrictive.
In the new proposed changes, which are less restrictive, the holding period for recipients of land via family transfers would be three years, not 10 as previously proposed.
In addition, a requirement that residents ask the Planning Commission and the City Council for permission to sell that land within the holding period would be eliminated. ILLUSTRATION: J. Grant Huneycutt of Suffolk says his family sold
their farm and home on Five Mile Road to pay off medical bills.
KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT by CNB