Four houses in Wake County are getting water from the city of Henderson, violating the city’s contract with Franklin County and raising a host of issues about the transfer of water from one river basin to another.
Or those houses are in Franklin County, and there’s nothing for Henderson to worry about.
The Henderson City Council’s Public Utilities Committee confronted that issue during a meeting Tuesday afternoon, but it’s not clear what the city should do even if the homes prove to be on the wrong side of an invisible line.
Regardless of the fate of the tiny portion of the Richland Hills subdivision, however, the city and Franklin County again are facing discussions over whether water from Kerr Lake should ever be piped as far south as Wake County.
Franklin County Manager Chris Coudriet sent a four-page letter to City Manager Eric Williams to explain the history of Richland Hills and officially request an amendment in the contract between Franklin and Henderson to allow the sale of water to the homes in that subdivision.
“Hopefully, this detailed information will allow your Council to appreciate the gravity and importance of this request to Franklin County,” Coudriet wrote.
And Assistant City Manager Mark Warren told the committee meeting Tuesday that the council should expect another official request, one asking that Franklin be allowed to resell Henderson water in Wake County whenever it wants to.
“And we will send them an official no,” council member Bernard Alston said.
Coudriet’s letter explains a “legal quagmire” that has developed around four lots of Tillet Development’s large Richland Hills subdivision, which straddles the Wake-Franklin line but is fully inside the town of Wake Forest. As Wake and Franklin counties understand the border they set in 1992, the four lots are clearly within Franklin County, but Wake Forest, which handled the planning approvals for the development, didn’t worry about the county boundary.
Confusion over conflicting surveys of the county line led to the four lots being marketed, sold and recorded as Wake County properties, and the children who live there attend Wake schools. But because of a ravine and a large stream, the four lots are cut off from Wake County water and instead are served by pipes running from Franklin County and carrying Kerr Lake water.
It’s not clear whether anyone involved in selling the lots as part of Wake County knew that houses in Wake couldn’t use water from Franklin.
The homeowners didn’t know they were likely living in Franklin until they got tax bills from that county in 2004. That’s when lawyers got involved.
The homeowners want to be in Wake County, and the developer wants them to be in Wake County. The county commissioners in Wake and Franklin have agreed to put the legal issues to rest by redrawing their border to place the houses in Wake. But Franklin conditioned the deal on winning Henderson’s approval to keep supplying water to the houses.
The five City Council members at Tuesday’s meeting — committee Chairman John Wester, Alston, Elissa Yount, Mike Rainey and Lonnie Davis — showed no interest in granting that approval.
Alston said that if the four homeowners are so determined to live in Wake County for whatever they perceive as the benefits, they must accept the consequences, and one of those is the cutoff of Henderson water.
Yount cited the expense of the studies potentially involved in allowing a transfer of water from the Roanoke River Basin to the Neuse River Basin.
“At this point, right now, the only response we can give Wake County, Franklin County, is that they are in violation of the contract,” Wester said. “We want to know what they intend to do to enforce it.”
Williams said: “It’s one of those situations where a mess is created, intentionally or otherwise, and you find yourself burdened with the mess rather than the person who created it.”
Williams plans to arrange a meeting for himself, Wester and Coudriet to discuss the water problem.