After two years of litigating a controversial plan to make nearly 200 homes part of Signal Mountain, the town and residents who fought the plan have agreed on a settlement to delay annexation until the end of 2012.
“This is a good resolution in the case to avoid time and expense and avoid splitting the people of Signal Mountain apart,” said Gary Starnes, an attorney for residents of the upscale neighborhoods Windtree and Fox Run that sued the town. “Now we can get onto building a better mountain and everyone getting along.”
The Signal Mountain Town Council approved a first reading of the settlement Monday and will vote on a second reading within the month, officials said.
Town officials had argued for the annexation, saying homeowners in the neighborhoods to be annexed already were using city services, and there wasn’t enough of a tax base on the mountain to recover those costs.
But residents in Windtree and Fox Run said they didn’t want to pay the additional taxes that would be triggered by annexation.
The settlement, which effectively delays the town’s annexation plan five years from when it was initially set to take place, will save home-owners between $8,000 and $10,000 in taxes they would have paid as residents of Signal Mountain during that time, Starnes said.
“Citizens in both subdivisions won’t get a tax bill until 2013,” he said. “The residents are pretty happy about it.”
And officials with Signal Mountain said they are satisfied with the terms of the settlement, too.
“It is a good thing for the town,” said Signal Mountain Town Manager Honna Rogers. “[The lawsuit] has been sitting there and at a lot of expense to the town and plaintiffs.”
Signal Mountain’s first push to annex the two neighborhoods began in 1995 but was stopped by public concern, according to Chattanooga Times Free Press archives.
Three trial dates have come and gone since the suit first was filed in December 2008, with the case most recently scheduled for Nov. 15.
Even if the annexation was stopped by a jury verdict, Starnes said the town could attempt it again two years later, prompting more costs and litigation.