Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 28, 1990                   TAG: 9004280243
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: BEDFORD/ FRANKLIN 
SOURCE: BY MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

ANNEXATION SUIT FACED BY BEDFORD

In the complaint filed in Bedford County Circuit Court, the supervisors asked Judge William Sweeney to order the nursing home to end its request for annexation and order the city to supply the nursing home with water and sewer.

It was a city-county fight over water and sewer that prompted the annexation request - and Friday's suit - to begin with.

Last June, Bedford City Council decided to stop supplying water and sewer services to new customers just outside the city, in the county.

That moratorium came after county officials objected to the city's proposed water rates that would have charged some county customers significantly more than city customers

The moratorium was to last until an analysis was conducted of the city's water and sewer facilities, council members agreed.

When the owners of a county nursing home decided to build an expansion on their property and asked for water and sewer extensions from the city, they were turned down.

So, in January of this year, the owners of Carriage Hill nursing home filed a request with the Commission on Local Government asking that their 23 acres of land be annexed into the city of Bedford. The owners of Carriage Hill made it clear that they wanted to be annexed so they could get water, particularly for a planned sprinkler system in the nursing home expansion.

The city then agreed to supply the utilities, as long as Carriage Hill pursues its annexation request in good faith.

Carriage Hill's request is scheduled to be heard next month in Richmond. But the supervisors' complaint, filed by Vinton attorney Richard Cranwell, who the county hired to fight the annexation request, asks the judge to stop that proceeding with an injunction.

The four-count complaint alleges that the city was already obliged to provide water and sewer services to the nursing home expansion.

It cites a 1986 city agreement to supply the utilities to the same land. At that time, the land was not owned by Carriage Hill, but by some developers who planned a 550-unit project on 108 acres - including the 23 acres in question now.

It's not clear why that project was never built, but the county suit alleges that the city's agreement to provide water and sewer to the land bound it to serve that land.

The suit also claims that by agreeing to serve the property, the city undertook the role of a public utility. As that, it was obligated to "furnish reasonable adequate" services to Carriage Hill under rules and regulations to which privately owned public utilities are held.

The suit also alleges that the annexation request to the Commission on Local Government was not a unilateral action from Carriage Hill at all. Rather, it says, city officials forced Carriage Hill to make the request.

A statewide moratorium on annexations pending a Grayson Commission study of local government relationships means the city of Bedford cannot annex county land. But a landowner's request for annexation is not barred under the moratorium.

"The city's plan or scheme enforcing Carriage Hill to seek annexation of its property . . . is an ill-disguised attempt to secure annexation of territory in the county in contravention of law," the suit states.