QUESTION: Has Alamance County taken legal action against a local contractor for ignoring a stop work order on an unpermitted building in the southern part of the county?
ANSWER: The county has indeed gone to court in order to halt work that Carroll Contracting has underway at 2720 Saxapahaw Bethlehem Church Road.
The county’s inspections department originally received a complaint on August 15, 2024 about this allegedly unpermitted project, which is located not far from the firm’s headquarters at 2552 Saxapahaw Bethlehem Church Road.
According to the county’s inspection records, this initial report was followed by another complaint on October 9 in which a neighbor objected that construction crews were “back out and working” despite the continued lack of a permit.
The county apparently filed a stop work order against Carroll Contracting shortly after the original complaint. Although the inspections department declined to furnish a copy of this document, the stop work order is referenced in a criminal summons that the county’s legal department recently obtained against the firm’s owner and namesake – Dustin Lee Carroll.
This summons, which was issued on April 10, accuses Carroll of committing a misdemeanor offense by violating “the stop work order issued…in August of 2024.” The court record goes on to note that Carroll was served with this summons “in the driveway of [his] residence” on April 19. This same marginal note goes on to observe that the 33-year-old defendant “currently lives at 2721 Saxapahaw Bethlehem Church Road,” which is located across the street from the allegedly illegal construction.
Sheena Fishel, a permit specialist in the county’s inspections department, said that she’s never previously seen the county pursue criminal sanctions against a contractor over a stop work order.
“Usually, they come in and do what they need to do,” she recalled in an interview with The Alamance News. “He just didn’t follow up with us…and we passed it along to the legal department.”
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