Gwinnett County commissioners have been ordered to pay a local development company nearly $5.4 million for 18 acres of land that the county initially agreed to purchase in 2009, before backing out of the deal when District Attorney Danny Porter threatened them with a grand jury investigation if it went through.
Gwinnett commissioners unanimously approved the payment to Old Peachtree Partners, owned by the father-and-son development team of Tim and Ty Robinson, during Tuesday night’s meeting.
Tim Robinson declined to comment on the payment when reached by telephone Tuesday.
It’s a vote more than six years in the making.
In 2007, the county initially negotiated with the Robinsons to pay $1.1 million for 1.8 acres of land located along I-85 outside Suwanee. The county wanted the right of way for a road extension.
But that deal fell apart when the Robinsons discovered the county planned to install a sewer line across the property, which they believed would lead to the “inverse condemnation” of an additional 16 acres. The two sides sued and countersued.
In May 2009, the county offered a settlement: It would buy 16 acres for $5.2 million, despite being strapped for cash and not having any immediate plans for the land. The Robinsons accepted.
This time, it was the county’s turn to back out.
Porter, the Gwinnett DA, fired off an e-mail to each of the commissioners when the land purchase showed up as a County Commission agenda item in June 2009.
“Frankly, it is with a great deal of shock that I read this agenda item, particularly with what I know about the ownership of the property and in this time of budgetary distress,” the e-mail said. “If this item goes forward tomorrow, you can expect to be explaining this and other recent land purchases to the Grand Jury.”
The commission voted down the purchase.
Porter said in an interview Tuesday that he would have made the deal part of a grand jury that was investigating the commission’s practice of buying land to settle lawsuits. Porter convened that grand jury after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found four questionable land deals that involved the county paying inflated prices.
Porter said the grand jury never considered the Old Peachtree Partners case.
“It was in litigation and the grand jury felt like it was not one that needed to be looked at,” Porter said.
The case wound all the way to Georgia’s Supreme Court, which refused to hear it — meaning the Georgia Court of Appeals’ ruling of March 2012 was enforced. The Court of Appeals had ruled that the county’s settlement offer constituted a binding agreement, despite the commission’s vote rejecting it.
The county is now ordered to pay $5.2 million for 16 acres, and an additional $150,000 for the 1.8 acres it wanted for right of way. The county had already paid $950,000 toward that purchase.
The appellate court ruled that commissioners authorized the county attorney to make the settlement offer in 2009, which was accepted before the public vote. And that, the court ruled, makes it a legal agreement.
“While a vote in a public meeting was a required formality to effectuate the purchase of the property,” the ruling says, “the board’s failure to complete that formality in good faith when voting in the public meeting cannot destroy an already existing settlement agreement.”
Gwinnett Commission Chairwoman Charlotte Nash declined to comment on the suit through a spokesman. Van Stephens, acting county attorney, did not return a phone message seeking comment.
About the Author
