Restrictions on Real Estate

Private Restrictions on Real Estate

• These restrictions begin with Encumbrances which are restrictions and limitations on the fee simple ownership rights that generally run with the land.
• These are covenants, conditions, and restrictions on the land that limit the way a property owner can use a given property.
• These conditions can be seen in many different ways such as Deed Restrictions, Liens, Easements, Profit a Prende, as well as Adverse Possession .
• Essentially these restrictions can limit the rights that property owners have depending on what the situation is for there are many different types of restrictions.

Here is an example from 2009 of a dispute over the private restrictions on a piece of real estate.

A local developer of Athens County, Brent Hayes, is appealing their decision to place a width restriction on Twp. Road 31A, a right-of-way that leads to his property near Route 56. Hayes proposed reopening the road to access a large parcel of land he purchased beyond the property of Stan and Paige Alost of Ervin Road. According to the Alosts, the former road is their driveway.

On July 7, the commissioners decided to not vacate the Twp. Road 31A right-of-way, denying the request of the Alosts. Twp. Road 31A hasn’t been used since 1972 and cuts through the Alosts’ property. However, in an attempt to please both parties, the commissioners set a right-of-way width restriction of 16 feet to lessen the impact of the road on the Alosts’ property.

The width restriction prevents Hayes from creating any development other than a single home on the 120-acre parcel. Hayes believes the county requires at least a 24-foot wide road for the development of a subdivision. He said infrastructure, such as water and electricity, would not be able to be extended along such a narrow, 16-foot right-of-way.

 

Brumfield, Sara. "Developer: Commissioners' road restrictions too narrow." AthensOhioToday.com. 2009. Web. 31 Jan. 2013. <http://www.athensohiotoday.com/news/developer-commissioners-road-restrictions-too-narrow/article_b74e0dcc-f26f-5ceb-8805-3d89e9063dac.html>

 

This causes many problems for the developer. He wants to develope the land into a subdivision of homes but due to the restrictions set by the county on this deal he feels he will be unable to attain the full value of his land. Since the 16-foot restriction is so small compared to the 24-foot he sees a big problem in terms of utilities as mentioned above. Sometimes there is nothing you can do about restrictions on your land even if it hurts the value but this is where savy developers must find ways around such things or settle with a lower value.

 

Public Restrictions on Real Estate

• These are government created restrictions on real estate that limit ownership.
• This includes things such as Property Taxes, Eminent Domain, and Police Power.
• Police Power enables governments to have the power of regulation to protect the public, this leads us to the Comprehensive General Plan.
• This plan looks 15 to 25 years into the future and contains an analysis of the future as well as plans for transportation, publiic facilities, land use.
• Along with this plan, Police Power, includes the Zoning, Intensitiy of Use, and Building Codes that are set by the government to protect the public health, safety, well-being.
• There can be many issues with these three and can harm or even kill the value of a property or project for example if the land you own is zoned for residential then you cannot use the land for commercial purposes and other issues like this such as not following building codes can halt a project in its tracks.

Here is an example in 2013 of a dispute over a zoning issue which is a public restriction on real estate.

 

The Golf Club of Avon Connecticut  wanted to sell excess acreage to a residential developer. The developer ran into resistance from the Avon Planning & Zoning Commission, which refused to grant the developer a variance from zoning restrictions that limited the land to use as open space. Claiming that the Commission’s actions were “illegal” and “arbitrary”, the developer and the club filed a lawsuit. The lawsuit appears to have captured the attention of the Avon municipal authorities.They managed to reach an agreement in principle, where the Planning & Zoning Commission–assuming the settlement is approved at an upcoming public meeting–will reverse its earlier denial of the rezoning application. To address the loss of the open space, the settlement calls for the developer to pay a monetary fee.

 

Harris, Rob. "Lawsuit By Developer Persuades Town To Grant Zoning Change." Gold Dispute Resolution. 2013. Web. 31 Jan. 2013. <http://www.golfdisputeresolution.com/?p=2730>

 

This example is clearly a zoning issue which falls under public restrictions on real estate. The land was originally zoned for open space therefore the developer was unable to use the land in the way it wanted to so they brought a lawsuit upon the Commission to motivate them to grant the developer a variance from such zones restrictions. Sometimes developers are not successful in getting granted a variance and if that is the case then the project is stopped dead in its tracks, since they cannot use the land for whatever purpose they intended.

Abner Jackson Plantation - Prime Real Estate

We were asked to provide an interesting piece of real estate from my perspective and I chose the Abner Jackson Plantation. I chose this plantation because of the historical significance it has with the area of my hometown. Surprisingly my Dad's house is actually on land that used to be a part of this huge plantation back in the 1850's.
The Abner Jackson Plantation was a large sugar plantation that originally used slaves and then prisoners to provide the labor they needed on the vast plantation in an area called "The Sugar Bowl of Texas." It played a large role in starting the City of Lake Jackson, providing a profitable business in the area to bring people in and essentially start the city and increase the value of the real estate everywhere in the area.

As I mentioned earlier, I actually grew up on a part of the land originally owned by Abner Jackson, although it is not near the plantation house or any other of the buildings, my house is actually along one of the edges of Jackson's original land.
Because of this I feel the Abner Jackson Plantation has a huge significance to the city of Lake Jackson and its inhabitants. Many residents now live all over the area that Abner Jackson once owned, the area is now called Lake Jackson Farms. It is on the edge of city limits and provides larger lots of land and more privacy due to its wooded areas for the people who live in Lake Jackson Farms rather than the smaller, more public areas inside the city. Basically this piece of real estate had an influence into the way I was raised and the values I have today just by living in the area as I'm sure is the case for many other residents of Lake Jackson Farms.






History
Here I have provided the information straight off of the Lake Jackson Farms website that gives a brief history of the plantation:

In 1849-1850, Abner and Margaret Jackson, originally from Virginia, owned the property which included the lake and land extending to the Brazos River. In the early 1850's, the Jacksons built a large colonial style house, storehouse, carriage house, blacksmith shop, cotton gin, and sugar mill along the southeastern shore of the lake as part of what he officially named the Lake Jackson Plantation.(This lake is an oxbow lake formed from a cut-off meander of the Brazos River) Although the entire plantation was very large, this main compound was located within the area known years later as the Lake Jackson Park. (The Dow Park). During the civil war, Abner and Margaret passed away and the property was handed down to his five children, 4 sons and a daughter. Two sons died in the war while one,George, survived and returned to the plantation which had been maintained and enlarged during the war by his brother John. During an argument over property ownership, George shot and killed John. George soon died of TB. The only Jackson member left, the daughter, Arseneth, married a wealthy plantation owner named Groce and moved to Waller County. In 1873, Arseneth and the estate of her brother George, sold the plantation. In the following years, the plantation was divided and maintained by tenant farmers and others for absentee landlords. In Sept. 1900, the main compound was severely damaged by the same hurricane that destroyed Galveston.

On Aug. 23, 1941, Dr. A.P. Buetel purchased a large portion of the plantation including the lake and surrounding land. Dow established a park on the lake in 1942 and later in 1945, the land surrounding the lake was surveyed and and divided into 50 lots. The area was officially designated as Lake Jackson Farms Subdivision. Lots were sold mainly to Dow employees. Clearence and preparation of the lots for homes started in 1947. The first homes were built shortly thereafter.

Later in ,the Lake Jackson Farms property owners (with land fronting on the lake) formed the Lake Jackson Association, incorporated under the laws of the State of Texas as a no capitol stock, non-profit corporation.


"Lake History." Lake Jackson Farms.2009. Web. 21 Jan. 2013.
http://lakejacksonfarms.com/History.aspx

About Me & Finc 371

My full name is Nicholas Kyle Zeien but I prefer to be called Kyle Zeien, always have been since my Dad's name is also Nick. This blog has been created to show the public a little about me and to keep track of the activities throughout the Real Estate course.

• About Me

• I am a Senior, class of 2013, upon completion of this semester I will have a BBA in Finance with an Economics Minor.
• Short-term career goals: I am currently searching for my first full time job in my career. I am open to multiple career paths but I plan on pursuing a financial analyst position for a corporation and do corporate valuations. I am also interested in pursuing a career in money management and investments such as a financial advisor or securities analyst. I am highly interested in investments and could see myself at a number of careers related to them.
• Long-term career goals: I currently am more focused on the short term obviously, but I would like to see myself long term at a fortune 500 company or another upstanding company where I can stand behind the type of work I do whatever it is. I intend to get my first job and put all my efforts into it and the company to see how far I can go within the company, hopefully into upper level management by the end of my career. If it does not work out with my first company, then hopefully I have gained enough knowledge and experience to move to a company that is a better fit for me and the company.
• My hometown is Lake Jackson, Texas. It is around an hour south of Houston, Texas near the Gulf of Mexico and the City of Freeport. Lake Jackson could use alot of new real estate development, it seems to lack many types of restaurants and entertainment even though new highways were recently completed going through the city, implying future developments.

• Hobbies & Interests

• I have always been interested in sports, I have played baseball, basketball football all in highschool and for most of my life. While here at A&M I have played intramural softball, volleyball, flag football and I currently play on the club Texas A&M Paintball team.
• Playing for the A&M Paintball team has been a blast and I love being able to represent A&M in a sport that I have loved to play for roughly 12 years. We play 5v5 PSP tournaments for the NCPA which is a college paintball league that many teams play in nationally. We even have Nationals in Lakeland Florida this April where we get to play teams from around the nation, since we usually play teams from the texas area in our division.
• I also enjoy bowling and playing pool when I go hang out with my friends and family especially during football season because I love watching the college and pro games.
• I love to go fishing as well, I mostly saltwater fish since I am from the coast and usually fish for redfish, flounder, and trout, but always catch others while we're out such as catfish or black drum or sheepshead. These are ok fish as well but we mostly fish for the first three mentioned. I also like to target shoot, I have a pistol that I usually shoot with but also like using shotguns and going skeet shooting or trying out new pistols if a friend or family member has recently purchased one.

• Real Estate Finance Course

• I hope to gain insight into real estate and how it works as well as how the experts think in order to gain knowledge in the field to possibly enter it as well as to know what I am doing when purchasing any type of real estate whether it be for business purposes or just buying a house for myself in the future.
• I do have an interest in real estate for business purposes and would like to dive deeper into the types of careers and what is expected of real estate professionals to see if it is a career I would like to pursue.

• Bucket List and Uniqueness

• The top item on my bucket list is to either live in or have a cabin near the mountains in Colorado. I love snowboarding and just being out in the open near the mountains and snow and lakes, the scenery is awesome in Colorado. I would love to be able to convince my friends and family to move there with me and have a group in the same area.
• I also would like to do some traveling outside of the US, I intend to go to Germany, Switzerland, Rome, and Britain. There are others that I would like to go to as well, but these are the ones at the top.
• The things that make me unique or who I am are mostly what I described as hobbies. I am a sports guy who enjoys playing many sports as well as watching them. One of my favorites is paintball because I have played it for so long and I enjoy shooting guns whether they be paintball guns or real guns for target shooting, avoiding getting shot myself while playing paintball is the top priority and hardest thing to do.
• I am a bit of an outdoorsman since I like so many sports and things like shooting and fishing, but I also am into video games such as on Xbox or my computer. I usually just play games that my friends play such as Halo, Call of Duty, Assassins Creed etc.

Some of my favorite links:
http://tamupaintball.freeforums.org/tourny-f2.html
https://howdy.tamu.edu/cp/home/displaylogin
http://games.espn.go.com/frontpage/football
http://ncpapaintball.com/
http://www.colorado.com/
http://www.lakejackson-tx.gov/pages/
http://www.ebay.com/