News

Trailer park could be shut down as 'public nuisance'

A 26-year-old mother of a newborn lives in a trailer with no running water.

By Bill Moss, Published: April 3, 2015

A public nuisance

Also in the room last week was County Attorney Russ Burrell, who has drafted a lawsuit that could force the park to shut down. The property is in unincorporated Henderson County but also in Hendersonville's extraterritorial zoning jurisdiction.
Russ Burrell is drafting a motion to have Alpine Woods declared a 'public nuisance'"We're contemplating action under Chapter 19 of the statutes to deal with a nuisance," Burrell said. "Among the things it allows the judge to do is if he finds a lot of crime is being committed there, he can find the place to be a nuisance. If we do that then the judge can abate that nuisance. What abate means is what the judge says it means. It's a blank sheet of paper.
"My board is very concerned with this being a place where a lot of crime is going," Burrell added. "There's a lot of substandard housing that doesn't meet minimum housing code. It's something that's obviously very concerning to everybody."
Maj. Frank Stout of the sheriff's department reported to the roundtable that from May 2007 to April 2014, deputies had responded to 7,789 calls for service at Alpine Woods. Some 1,957 could fit the nuisance abatement statute, he said, including disturbance calls, domestic abuse, drugs, fights and loud music.
"It's serious enough that when we respond we send at least two units," he said. "EMS and fire don't go in there without an escort."
"John has been a very good driving force to help facilitate this," Stout added. "It is a true collaboration to come up with a solution in a humane way. If you shut it down, you've got a lot of people that don't have a place to go. That's why we've got so many people trying to work together and come up with a solution where those that don't have a place to go can end up. You don't want to just kick them out, shut them down and one day they're out in the cold.
"That's why it's taken so many people to come up with something that's fair and decent and will work. It would be simple to go in and drop the hammer on them and burn the whole place down. You can't do that. You've got children involved, you've got elderly people involved, and you do have some thugs involved too. It's a mix that you're trying to just deal with fairly."