A little over a year ago, photographer Michael Higgins opened the front door of his house to see local farmer George Cason standing there. “He said I want to be a good neighbor,” remembers Higgins. “He brought over pumpkins and gave apples to my kids.”
A month later, Higgins says Cason was hurling inflammatory threats at him, so much so that he feared for his family‘s safety. His wife even called the police. What brought it on?
In 2005, Cason—a longtime fixture at the Farmer’s Market—bought 2.5 acres of land near Route 20 North with vague plans to build an orchard on part of it (and a house for his grandson). Attendant to his purchase was the right to develop an easement roughly 25′ wide and 400′ long that connects his property to Franklin Drive and the quiet neighborhood that wraps around the hills. This narrow stretch is bordered on both sides by residential parcels, one of which has been occupied by Higgins since 1998.
Two neighbors continue to clash over a road with nearly 90-degree slopes, first over a set of culvert pipes that resulted in a stagnant pool in Michael Higgins’ backyard.
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As Cason planned to farm some of the 2.5-acre parcel, he was granted an agricultural exemption from the usual residential requirements set by Erosion and Sediment Control Law for the construction of a road. Consequently, Cason was able to construct a drive with 90-degree sides that rose multiple feet higher than his neighbor’s land on each side. Spillover was bound to happen. “There’s mud flowing on my land,” Higgins says.
“The guy’s crazy,” says Cason. According to him, Higgins asked him to remove a few trees that hung over Cason’s road and Cason gladly obliged, agreeing to haul them to a burn-pile on Cason’s newly flattened land. “As soon as I struck the match to burn it, he called the fire marshal,” Cason says. “That’s what a low life bastard he is.”
Once his yard started to suffer the effects of the construction, he decided to fight back, hiring local attorney (and City Planning Commissioner) Cheri Lewis for a time. “That road is dangerous,” she says.
Higgins also took his complaints to the Board of Supervisors this past fall. “They seemed to agree that the intensity of the development was extreme,” says Higgins. Yet, he was up against codified state and county law. “This agricultural exemption is the ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card for development,” he says.
On March 8, Higgins got an e-mail from the county’s senior engineering inspector that put another nail in the coffin. “Mr. Cason reiterated his desire to plant fruit trees and vegetables on the site,” it read, “…The site continues to remain agriculture and is exempt from current Erosion and Sediment Control Laws.”
Five days later, the frustrated photographer rented a Bob-Cat and moved all the dirt that encroached on his property, pushing some of Cason’s back in the process. The next morning, Higgins awoke to the roaring belch of a bulldozer moving up the pipe-stem. Fearing that it might be headed for his yard, he rang 911. The police showed just as the bulldozer was making a retreat. The crisis was averted—for now.
“That son of a bitch is gonna keep on keepin’ on,” says Cason, “but he ain’t got a leg to stand on.”
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