N. Charleston files lawsuit challenging condemnation

Ashley Fletcher Frampton
Published Feb. 15, 2011

 

Following through on its promises to engage the state in a legal battle, the city of North Charleston has filed a lawsuit challenging the S.C. Department of Commerce’s right to take several parcels on the former Navy base to build a rail yard.

 

The Commerce Department on Dec. 22 announced plans for building a rail yard near the Port of Charleston’s new cargo terminal on the former base. At the rail yard, shipping containers would be assembled into trains.

 

The same week in late December, state officials served several property owners, including the city, with notices that it would use eminent domain to take parcels for the facility.

 

The city’s lawsuit, filed Jan. 21, seeks to overturn the condemnation action. In nine separate claims, the city argues that the Commerce Department and its S.C. Public Railways Division:

• Did not complete the project plans and financial studies required for condemnation.
• Did not follow certain procedures outlined under the state’s eminent domain laws.
• Cannot legally take the city’s land for a public use because it is already devoted to a public use.
• Lack the statutory authority to build a port-related rail yard. That authority belongs to the S.C. Department of Transportation and the S.C. State Ports Authority, the city claims.
• Are violating city contracts and debt obligations.
• The Commerce Department has not yet submitted a response to the lawsuit.

“We believe the claims are without merit and will be filing responses soon,” said Commerce spokeswoman Kara Borie.

 

North Charleston filed the lawsuit for each of the three parcels the Commerce Department seeks to take from the city itself, as well as a tract that the city deeded to Clemson University several years ago for its Restoration Institute.

 

City attorney Brady Hair said the recent lawsuit won’t be the last one that North Charleston files, though he declined to detail future filings.

 

“Challenging the condemnation is just the first shot across the bow,” Hair said.

 

The “heart and soul of the city’s position,” Hair said, is its contention that the state committed in 2002 not to run trains serving the new port terminal through the northern end of the former Navy base, and that the state is now breaking that promise.

 

The city sought that commitment from the S.C. State Ports Authority in a formal memorandum of understanding in an effort to protect redevelopment efforts on the northern end of the base.

 

“That deal was a written agreement approved by the Budget and Control Board, signed by the city and signed by the State Ports Authority,” Hair said. “And now the state, through the Department of Commerce, has tried to come in and break that deal, and we don’t believe they can do that.”

 

But Commerce Department officials and some state lawmakers have said that they are not breaking the deal. Instead, they say, the agreement was between the SPA and the city, and it does not bind them.

 

Those who support the state rail plan say it’s the best strategy for providing the two major rail carriers, CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Corp., with equal access to the new port terminal. That equal footing makes the Port of Charleston more competitive with other ports, they say.

 

CSX has proposed its own plan for a rail yard that would be accessed only from the southern end of the base. Company executives recently said they would share that yard with competitor Norfolk Southern, and share its costs, to achieve equal dual access.

 

What will happen with the rail plan in Park Circle?

Park Circle residents turn out for rail meeting

By Daniel Brock
Published Jan. 12, 2011

Residents of a North Charleston neighborhood are mobilizing in their fight against the state’s rail plan.

More than 120 community members attended the Olde North Charleston Neighborhood Council’s monthly meeting Tuesday night, a gathering that usually attracts a crowd of fewer than 10.

Worried faces filled the room on East Montague Avenue as citizens voiced their concerns over the S.C. Commerce Department’s rail plan, which city officials say likely will have a dramatic effect on quality of life in the area.

The plan calls for construction of an intermodal rail yard on 71 acres near the Clemson University Restoration Institute’s wind turbine test facility at the former North Charleston Navy base. The rail yard would provide near-dock access to the S.C. State Ports Authority terminal under construction at the base’s southern end. The region’s two Class I railroads, CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp., would use the yard.

North Charleston officials warn that the state’s plan would triple train traffic in the Park Circle area while greatly expanding the trains’ size — to almost two miles long in some cases. Residents questioned how the plan would affect emergency services, traffic patterns and property values.

City officials contend the Commerce proposal goes against a 2002 agreement with the SPA prohibiting that agency from using track that runs out the base’s north end and past areas North Charleston has spent millions to redevelop in the past decade.

Norfolk Southern trains would access the Commerce facility via tracks that run next to Park Circle, and CSX would arrive at the yard from the south.

“We’re going to spend a lot of money” on a legal fight against the plan, North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey told the crowd.

Summey said that the city has spent $15 million on its Waterfront Park, $2.1 million on another park on the south end of town and $3 million on redevelopment of the East Montague area, based on the belief that heavy trains would not rumble through the area.

He added that a renaissance in the area that includes extensive business and residential growth would have never happened had people thought they would one day have a rail yard as a neighbor.

Asked who had moved to Park Circle during the past eight years, nearly everyone in attendance raised a hand.

“We’re in for a fight folks, and we need your help,” said Summey, who said he wanted to bring 250 residents on a trip to address the state Legislature.

Already, a group of residents has formed a Facebook group, which is growing rapidly, and a website has popped up. The site allows users to sign an online petition and write letters of support.

A large e-mail list was compiled by meeting organizers during the gathering, and 100 bumper stickers that read “Save Park Circle No More Rails” were long gone moments after the crowd was dismissed.

Nicholai Burton, 28, lives in Park Circle and operates a nonprofit movie theater on East Montague Avenue. He helped design the website and said that TV ads and more Internet campaigns are on the way.

“We’re going to do what we can,” Burton said.

Opponents speak out against rail plan

Friday, 09 July 2010
By Daniel Brock

NORTH CHARLESTON -- Mayor Keith Summey’s play to eliminate northern rail service to the former Navy base in favor of a line from the south has come under criticism from longtime opponents, who claim the plan isn’t in the region’s best interest and say they have been shut out of negotiations.

Summey, development firm Shipyard Creek and railroad operator CSX Transportation have drafted a memorandum of understanding that, if approved by the North Charleston City Council, would basically greenlight an intermodal rail facility that designed to service the $600 million S.C. State Ports Authority terminal under construction at the base.

Summey’s push for southern rail stems from a desire to preserve redevelopment efforts in North Charleston’s neighborhoods and on the base, which he says a northern line would negatively affect.

But a rival rail line and state agencies say that they’ve been frozen out of the proceedings and that they disagree with the plan.

“We have not been involved in this,” said Robin Chapman, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern, Charleston’s other Class 1 railroad. Chapman said the company hasn’t participated in talks because it wasn’t invited.

“We don’t believe it’s in the right spot. We believe the best solution is a single consolidated terminal served by both Norfolk Southern and CSX,” he said.

Norfolk Southern would have to pay a switching fee for use of the CSX-owned track that would service a proposed intermodal yard on the Macalloy property, which is owned by Shipyard Creek. That charge can run into the hundreds of dollars per car.

Though it is common for rail companies to charge switching fees, Chapman said in this instance it would put Norfolk Southern at a competitive disadvantage in Charleston.

Summey addressed that issue in an interview on Wednesday.

“If the state was running it, they’d charge both of them a fee,” Summey said. “That’s the way it works in just about every location across the country. Now if Norfolk Southern wants a yard, they can build a yard somewhere else.”

S.C. Public Railways President Jeff McWhorter echoed Chapman’s sentiments, saying that his agency has not been consulted and that it prefers a facility that “would be accessible by both” rail lines.

The ports authority, which has long tried to distance itself from the debate, is not part of any specific plan, according to Jim Newsome, the agency’s president and CEO. The SPA was also not involved in the drafting of the proposed agreement.

“Whatever solution is implemented doesn’t require our buy-in,” Newsome said.

SPA spokesman Byron Miller said the SPA has concerns about Shipyard Creek’s plan for the Macalloy land. One of those concerns pertains to a port access road that would run across part of the Macalloy property.

A clause in the current memorandum calls for North Charleston to “assist and support the effort to cause” the port access road to be relocated.

If the road is moved, permits pertaining to both the road and the terminal could be reopened. Newsome said a reopening of the permits would likely be both time-consuming and costly, and could delay the terminal’s construction.