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Wake
Forest’s town commissioners may have
been as shocked as the rest of the
people in the board room Tuesday night
when Beth Naegele showed the video of
the torrent which noisily raged around
and behind her house during and after
Alberto.
The commissioners could not
comment, however, because attorney Roger
Knight had warned them any statements
might be in the public record if the
Naegeles do turn to a lawsuit for
redress of the problems.
Along with the video,
Naegele showed several still photos of
the stormwater from that entire section
of Crenshaw Hall Plantation that runs
down into her yard each time it rains,
bringing debris, digging out soil on the
banks, ponding up almost to her
foundation and running unchecked into
the 50-foot Neuse River Buffer at the
edge of her yard.
The stormwater is supposed
to be caught and then gradually
dispersed through three level spreaders
designed by Rice & Associates, the
engineering firm hired by Steve Gould,
who developed Crenshaw Hall Plantation.
Gould’s realty firm sold the house at
1305 Clatter Ave. to Beth Naegele and
her husband, Robert, on Nov. 24, 2004.
“I’m just here today to make
you aware of it, to ask for help from my
local government,” Naegele said. “Right
now it’s in the state’s hands. The
Division of Water Quality is trying to
work with the developer to come up with
a new plan to reduce the flow into the
Neuse River Buffer and not make our back
yard into a lake when it rains.”
Naegele said there is a
health hazard between rain events
because mosquitoes breed in the standing
water. Also, “For at least six to eight
months it (the level spreader near their
house) has not been cleaned out, and it
smells when it gets hot.”
Level spreaders are concrete
tanks that capture stormwater, which
then is supposed to flow out gradually
through outlets. One of the three
outlets for the level spreaders is
halfway on the Naegele property.
Knight was referring to a
letter from Wray Harrison, the Naegele’s
attorney, and addressed to the engineer,
Gould, the state Department of
Environment and Natural Resources, the
Town of Wake Forest along with its
officials and staff, the Title Company
of North Carolina, attorney Malcolm
Harris and Christopher Whitehorne, the
builder.
Harrison’s letter, written
Dec. 28, 2005, outlines a litany of
mistakes, omissions and perhaps fraud.
The deed from Gould to
Whitehorne did show a drainage easement
and the Neuse River Buffer, but the deed
to the Naegeles did not show either.
The Naegeles knew there was
a drainage easement but, Beth said,
thought it was similar to the
riprap-lined drain near their former
house in Youngsville.
Harrison states the Naegeles
were never told Gould had been advised
by the town not to build on their lot
and the adjacent one because of there
would be drainage and pooling.
Despite that warning, the
town did issue a building permit for the
Naegele lot and approved the engineering
plan. Now, according to Harrison’s
letter, the town does not want to take
over the erosion control plan.
Because their deed did not
mention the easement and buffer and
because they were advised they did not
need a survey, the title company does
not want to cover any claims because of
the easement or buffer. The couple is
not properly insured for either title or
flood.
The letter offers two
solutions. One would be a payment of
$114,000, a third of the purchase price
of the house and compensation for the
uninsured dangers and the loss of market
value. The other solution would be a
re-engineering of the stormwater
structures.
In the event neither of the
solutions comes about, the Naegeles may
either sue some or all of the parties
addressed in the Harrison letter or, the
preferred solution, take the matter to
mediation. |
