A Mebane homeowner is asking the state Court of Appeals to overturn a visiting special superior court judge’s decision to dismiss the city of Mebane as a defendant to his suit earlier this year, over what he contends is an illegal parking prohibition against residents parking in three common areas at Manorfield subdivision.
James Crandall, who owns a home at 1404 Yellow Wood Drive, argues in the suit he originally filed in Alamance County superior court and the brief he has since filed with the Appeals Court that there were no restrictions on parking in three common areas when he bought his house in Manorfield in July 2017.
However, the property owners association for the subdivision put up signs prohibiting residents from parking in the common areas in August 2019.
In his initial lawsuit and his appeal, Crandall claims he is being deprived of his right, as a homeowner, to use the common areas – including for parking – under the subdivision’s declaration of covenants and restrictions.
Crandall, Mebane officials, and the Manorfield Property Owners Association, had been ordered last fall to resolve the dispute in mediation by January 10, 2024. Citing a “lack of subject matter jurisdiction,” visiting special superior court judge Clayton D. Somers of Wake County dismissed the city as a defendant following a hearing in Alamance County on May 20 of this year.
Somers, however, denied a separate motion to dismiss the Manorfield Property Owners Association as a defendant, based on the order he entered on June 5.
Crandall recounts the case background in his brief for the Appeals Court. The absence of restrictions on parking in common areas at Manorfield when he bought his home in 2017 had been consistent with the city’s Unified Development Ordinance (UDO).
However, subsequent prohibitions on residents parking in the common areas, which took effect in 2019, violated a provision within Mebane’s UDO that deals with residential cluster development, based on Crandall’s original suit. “Easements over common areas for access, ingress from and to public streets and walkways, and easements for enjoyment of the common areas, as well as for parking, shall be granted to each owner of a residential site,” according to the suit.
But the city’s attorney countered, “The city of Mebane was not in a position to question the Association’s regulation of common areas which the attorney contended was consistent with [the UDO],” Crandall recounts in his newly-filed appeal.
There are three parking areas within the common areas at Manorfield, located on a combination of public and private streets and “are oriented such that vehicles park perpendicular to the streets in two of those locations,” based on the description in Crandall’s original lawsuit. He described a third parking area as “a parking lot serving a gazebo and related amenities that are part of the Common Area[s].”
Due to his small lot size, Crandall apparently had relied on being able to use one of the common areas to park his company vehicle – until the Manorfield Property Owners Association threatened to fine him. On August 25, 2019, the property association posted signs in all three common areas stating, “Visitor Parking Only. Resident Parking Unauthorized.”
For his appeal, Crandall argues that the 2019 restriction for “visitor parking only” prevents him and any other Manorfield homeowners from using the three parking areas, even though they are part of the subdivision’s common areas, and an implied right of use is conferred to property owners under the subdivisions declaration and covenants.
The “Amended and Restated Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions” for Manorfield “does not allow the association to deny an owner the use of any part of the open space and common areas,” Crandall asserts in his appeal.
Crandall is asking the Appeals Court to review the decision to dismiss the city as a defendant, based on its argument that enforcement of the UDO isn’t applicable, “thereby defaulting to the [Manorfield Property Owners Association’s] regulation.”
In his appeal brief, Crandall insists that the city has a duty to “evenly enforce” the UDO and that its refusal to do so effectively amounts to a “taking” of the common area parking that property owners have a right to use under Manorfield’s declaration of covenants.
Crandall also contends that the judge who presided over the hearing in Alamance County in May 2024 did, in fact, have “subject matter jurisdiction,” as Crandall had no other course of action, or “administrative remedy.”
Instead, Crandall was informed by the property owners association that he couldn’t park in the disputed areas and was threatened with fines if he did; and “the declaration does not have any appeal process listed for when an owner receives a fine or is said to be in violation,” according to the brief he has filed with the Appeals Court.
