Georgia property owners battle railroad company in ongoing eminent domain case

ATLANTA (AP) — A hearing on Tuesday raised questions about a railroad company’s use of eminent domain in one of Georgia’s poorest areas.

After three days of hearings in November, an officer for the Georgia Public Service Commission granted Sandersville Railroad Co.'s request to legally condemn nine properties in Sparta, Georgia. The commission’s decision to adopt or reject the officer’s recommendation could affect property law nationwide.

Sandersville, which is owned by a prominent Georgia family, wants to build a line 4.5 miles (7.25 kilometers) long called the Hanson Spur that would connect to the CSX railroad rail line at Sparta, 85 miles (135 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta.

The hearing led Sparta property owners to make the drive north. Some of them might have their land condemned, and others were neighbors who don’t want a railroad near their backyards.

Lawyers representing the property owners and the No Railroad in Our Community Coalition, which formed to stop the railroad’s construction, say that Sandersville has not met the requirements of Georgia’s eminent domain law.

The law requires the company to show that the railroad will serve a public use and needs the line for business. Although Sandersville brought five potential customers to the hearing, they have not shown signed contracts with the customers or the CSX railroad, lawyers representing property owners said. A spokesperson for Sandersville said the owner has reached “agreements” with potential customers.

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Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Bill Maurer, who represents property owners, said that Sandersville is motivated by profit. He pointed to earlier testimony from Benjamin Tarbutton III, the president of Sandersville Railroad Co., describing the expansion as an economic development project.

“It is a naked transfer of wealth from my clients to Sandersville and its small network of clients, so those companies can get richer,” said Maurer, whose nonprofit fights for private property rights against eminent domain for private uses.

Maurer added that Sandersville hasn’t produced information on “basic issues” such as costs and expected loads. He also said that the company never contested a 50-page report produced by a railroad consultant that disputed the economic feasibility of the project.

But Robert Highsmith, an attorney for Sandersville, noted that state law doesn’t require the company to provide the analysis Maurer sought. They only have to show that the line is necessary for the business and public services.

Right now, potential users of the Hanson Spur railroad cannot transfer products between areas that are best served by the CSX railroad. They can only truck their goods to the CSX railroad, which Sandersville’s lawyers said is not economical.

“There are markets that Veal Farms can’t reach,” Highsmith said. “There are markets that Southern Chips cannot reach economically without access to the CSX mainline in East Georgia.”

Sparta residents also worry that the railroad would permit the expansion of a nearby quarry that generates noise and dust. One resident, Kenneth Clayton, 59, said the quarry’s activities caused the ceiling on his home to fall.

The quarry is owned by Heidelberg Materials, a publicly traded German firm, and Tarbutton has said the quarry is considering expanding so that the loudest part of its operation would happen farther from its current location.

Quarry or not, Blaine Smith said nothing could convince him to willingly give up the part of his land. The property in Sparta has been in his family for several generations.

“I grew up farming, all of us out in the field, all of that land over there that the railroad is going to cross,” Smith said.

Now, Smith grows timber on the land and rests by the property’s pond. He and his wife, Diane, live in Maryland, but they come to Sparta several times a year.

The couple might move back to Sparta full time, but they also want to protect their land for future generations of Black farmers – a small slice of an already declining population of farmers.

Diane Smith found Tarbutton’s attitude “cavalier” when he spoke with them. It made her “blood boil bad” when he sent them notices to condemn the property before he had full legal authority to do so, she said.

Representatives of Sandersville Railroad Co. said that Tarbutton tried to reach and agreement with the Smiths and travelled to Maryland to meet with family members. The company has made “accommodating adjustments” to the railroad in response to their requests, and it reached agreements with owners of nine of the 18 parcels the company needs.

Sandersville would be legally required to pay fair market value for any land that it takes through the eminent domain process.

But the Smiths said they aren’t in it for the money.

“We don’t want this in our yard -- or anywhere we can hear it, see it,” Blaine Smith said.

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Charlotte Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on X: @ckramon