Report: County lowballs Black family, seeks to take their land

Gwinnett County officials said they had been attempting to acquire two Georgia properties at the center of an eminent domain controversy from the Livsey family for four years.

A Black family in Georgia claims that county officials offered a lowball price for two parcels of land they are determined to acquire, even if it means forcing them out of their longtime home.

The Livsey family purchased their Promised Land property more than a century ago and, since then, have played a significant role in the African-American neighborhood located in south Gwinnett. According to the Gwinnett Daily Post, family patriarch Thomas Livsey, 93, holds the title of the unofficial “Mayor of the Promised Land.”

The family sold the Maguire-Livsey House, popularly called “The Big House,” to Gwinnett County officials more than six years ago for conversion into a historical park.

The county now owns four parcels of land for the park, and officials are interested in obtaining the property next to “The Big House.” They sent letters threatening to invoke eminent domain after the Livseys refused to sell.

“Gwinnett County had made [Thomas Livsey] an offer that [was] ridiculous first of all,” said Sheryl Livsey, Thomas Livsey’s daughter, the Daily Post reported. “When he didn’t accept it — and keep in mind, he’s 93 — they came back with several documents indicating that there would be a meeting, and after that meeting, it would be determined whether it was eminent domain.”

Family members claimed that Thomas Livsey’s health was deteriorating when the county attempted to bargain with him, indicating they felt officials intended to exploit that situation.

Chad Livsey said county officials told him they knew of his grandfather’s health decline. “So, I let them know, ‘Please stop negotiating with him,'” he recalled, according to the Daily Post. He added that officials have been “working with him, while knowing” of his dementia, “just to get this land.”

The properties in question include the “Apartment Property” in Snellville. The Gwinnett County Tax Assessor’s Office reports that the property has 3.02 acres of land with a $472,000 fair market value as of 2022, contrary to the 2.73 acres listed in the letter to the Livsey family. Chad Livsey said family members live in the apartment building, so they don’t want to sell, especially not “for pennies, which is what they offered us.”

The other property is known as the “Lake property.” According to the Tax Assessor’s Office, the 7.66 acres that make up this property had a $67,200 market value last year.

According to Chad Livsey, the county offered roughly $420,000 for the apartment building and about $250,000 for the lake property. However, he cited nearby homes that sold for much more.

There are racial undertones to the dispute over the two properties since some members of the Livsey family and their supporters believe the county is attempting to snatch the land from a Black family rather than compensate them fairly.

“This has always been the practice,” said Chad Livsey, the Daily Post reported. “It’s never about the diversity, equity and inclusion that they talk about. Not for the Black people that have been here for almost 200 years. We don’t get that.” 

In a statement Wednesday, county staffers said they had been attempting to acquire the two properties at the center of the eminent domain controversy for four years. They claimed they made fair offers based on market value.

Gwinnett County Commissioner Ben Ku said leaders are “aware of the optics of the situation,” but insisted they respected the Livsey family’s history in the neighborhood. 

Ku said, in part, that the board doesn’t “feel comfortable continuing the negotiations with the Livseys without a court-supervised process to protect their wishes and interests,” according to the Daily Post. “This option is only available to us after we initiate the eminent domain process.”

Thomas Maguire was the first owner of the Maguire-Livsey House. He ran it as a plantation he dubbed The Promised Land. The property has some Civil War history, owing to the looting of the Maguire farm by Union soldiers during the Atlanta campaign.

Around 1920, the Livsey family acquired 110 acres, which included Maguire’s plantation home. They cultivated the land, grew livestock, manufactured butter and operated a syrup mill.

The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners will decide whether to utilize eminent domain to take the properties from the Livsey family at its public hearing meeting in two weeks on Tuesday, April 25. 

Sheryl Livsey said she is looking to hire a real estate lawyer to support the family in its fight against the eminent domain attempt. “It’s not right,” she contended, the Daily Post reported. “Whatever it is, it’s not right.”

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