The county’s bid for an injunction to force a Belk man to remove a gate across what officials say is a county road will be heard today (Wednesday) in DeKalb County Chancery Court by Chancellor Ronald Thurman.
Four witnesses were heard on Monday, but the chancellor scheduled the remainder of the hearing for today at 2 p.m. Thurman reportedly had a trial to preside over in Putnam County Monday afternoon.
The Chancellor will decide whether to issue a temporary injunction to prevent Grant Manning from maintaining a gate across Sunset Drive.
While county officials insist that Manning cannot put a gate across Sunset Drive because it is a county road, Manning’s attorneys, Sarah Cripps and Brandon Cox, say that the gravel road is a private drive.
County attorney Hilton Conger filed a petition seeking a temporary and permanent injunction to order Manning to remove the gate on behalf of the county and Road Supervisor Wallace "Butch" Agee on Aug. 5.
Agee, along with highway department employees Charlie Mai Maxwell and Billy Eudean Pack and adjoining landowner Bart Lay, testified Monday.
Manning’s attorneys requested that the chancellor dismiss the county’s complaint on the grounds of “equitable estoppel and collateral estoppel” and that the court enter an order requiring the county to pay all of Manning’s reasonable attorney fees in the amount of $9,500 and any other relief to which he may be entitled.
While the county’s complaint charges that the .2 mile-long road has been on the county map since 1998, Manning’s representation claims that although it is listed on the map, it is not a county road.
Cripps and Cox cited a July 2014 DeKalb County Regional Planning Commission action to approve a final subdivision plat for Manning. They claim that the plat contains no public dedication to DeKalb County of Sunset Drive or Hidden Hollow Way, another road through the property, and that there is no right-of-way dedication for the roads.
Court documents filed by Manning’s attorneys assert that he and his ex-wife acquired ownership of four tracts of property in the Belk community containing a total of 120 acres, more or less, on February 26, 1990. Manning began to purchase limestone and gravel and to pay for grading in order to improve the path in the spring of 1990. In early 1992, at the request of the DeKalb County E-911 Board, Manning named the two gravel driveways traversing his farm Sunset Drive and Hidden Hollow Way. The documents state that neither gravel driveway appears on the county road list in 1997, and that Manning and his former wife were the only interested parties and abutting land owners to the two gravel driveways. The gravel driveway known as “Sunset Drive” first appears on the DeKalb County Road Names List in February 1999. The gravel driveway known as Hidden Hollow Way never appeared on any DeKalb County Road Names List generated during any year from 1990 to present,” the documents read.
Manning’s attorneys admit that he erected a gate across the road in May 2011, Sunset Drive now also serves Bart Lay, who apparently owns an adjoining property owner purchased from Manning’s ex-wife. While Manning contends that the gate does not prevent Lay from accessing his land, although Sunset Drive is apparently the only road leading to the property. Manning’s attorneys claim that the property has 260 feet of frontage on Allen Bend Road, and that he could gain access there.
The county commission voted to have Manning’s gate removed in November 2015, and Agee did so twice, only to see the gate replaced and locked both times.
