On Thursday, April 29, Woolen Mills resident Louis Schultz was arrested and charged with attempted malicious wounding after rolling his car towards a group of city workers who were repairing a leaky sewage pipe on Steephill Street, near his home on E. Market Street. Schultz’s reasoning was simple: Steephill Street is private property, and the city has no right to be there.
“I can look out from my window at a sea of illegal and inept action on behalf of the city promoting its own agenda,” says Schultz, who was arrested previously for protesting maintenance on Steephill.
In August 2004, Schultz’s neighbors at 313 Steephill decided to pave the street from the corner of Market and Steephill near the entrance of the street. Schultz laid down in front of private workers from C&G Paving, and was ultimately hauled away by police.
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Louis Schultz has been arrested twice for protesting City work on Steephill Street, which he says is private property. “The city continues to insist that there is a public right of way there, even though they have produced no documents to show that they have ever owned |
Schultz and his wife bought their property in 2000. Despite putting enormous effort into clearing the yard and creating a massive garden, by 2004 they found the newly paved corner on Steephill diverted water in the direction of their yard. It caused flooding along the creek that runs past the garden. The same water flow also began to decay a bridge on Steephill. In 2006, the city stepped in to replace the deck on the old bridge.
“But the city did such a poor job on that bridge,” says Schultz, “that it’s falling apart at the corners, and there’s an open hole that directs water into the rock wall that upholds the bridge. That water could potentially bust the wall wide open and knock the bridge down. It’s ridiculous.”
In letters from 1987 and 2003, the city’s neighborhood planner informed Hal Bonney, the owner of 313 Steephill, that the road was a public right of way. The city denied any responsibility for its upkeep, making it clear that the adjoining property owners alone were responsible for both the street and the bridge. Schultz claims that the street is not a public through-street, nor are the owners of 313 Steephill adjacent to the area that they paved, and so had no right to do so.
In subdivisions created after 1946, there is no ambiguity. If a road was declared a through street in Charlottesville before that time, it became a city-owned and maintained road. However, if a road were declared private property in a deed prior to 1946, Virginia Code requires the city to honor the deed. In the case of Steephill Street, the 1887 deed (as well as a 1920 subdivision map) clearly shows the street as a private driveway, connecting two adjacent plats of land.
City Attorney Craig Brown says that the city “put up a sign declaring Steephill private property, at Mr. Schultz’s request.” If so, why does the city continue to do work on the street and the bridge?
“We have an immediate interest in that street and bridge,” says Brown. “We have a sewage line, a water line and a natural gas line running through that street.”
“We’ve had many conversations with Mr. Schultz regarding our plans for that street,” says Ric Barrick, the city’s director of communications. “In this most recent incident, there was raw sewage going into a creek and we needed to correct that.”
Brown says the city needs a “long-term solution.”
“The ideal situation would be for the adjoining property owners to grant the city an easement so that we could access those three lines and maintain them,” says Brown. “But at every turn, Mr. Schultz puts up road blocks.”
“This is the land of Thomas Jefferson, the very symbol of American free speech and private property rights,” says Schultz. “It is unbelievable that the city, by repeating and enforcing, has done what it cannot do by law—take over private property without due process.” Schultz goes before a judge in the matter of his criminal charge on June 10.