Was judge wrong to swiftly yank management of troubled Macon townhomes? Case restarts
CORRECTION: Green Meadows was ordered to give up management of Green Meadows Townhouses, a decision which was reversed in a later court ruling. This information was incorrect in a previous version of this story.
A judge has shot down Macon-Bibb County’s effort to delcare Green Meadows Townhouses a “nuisance” property, court records show.
The county filed a lawsuit against the owners of Green Meadows Townhomes in 2023, hoping to reduce crime issues in the area after nearly 2,000 emergency calls — including more than 100 for gunfire — were reported at the property in about one year. A judge granted the county’s request and transferred management away from the property owners, but appellate courts got involved and overturned the orders that favored Macon-Bibb County. Late last month, Georgia’s Supreme Court said it wouldn’t hear the case.
Now the case is headed back to square one.
“What happens next is that the case returns to the Superior Court to continue from where things were when the appeal was filed back in 2023,” said Michael McNeill, chief assistant county attorney.
Macon has committed to seeing the case through.
“Macon-Bibb County is committed to improving public safety so (we) will be continuing our legal actions,” Chris Floore, the chief communications officer for the county, said.
K. David Cooke Jr. represented the county alongside McNeill. Cameron Roberts, Charles Peeler, Dominyka Plukaite, James Cobb, Michael Eber and Thomas Reilly represented Green Meadows Townhomes and its owners, court records show
Why a judge immediately revoked management
The county’s attorneys argued in court that Green Meadows Townhouses has “substantial gang and drug-related activity ... including multiple violent crimes occurring over the past three years,” according to the lawsuit. Between March 2022 and June 2023, the property witnessed over 144 incidents of gunfire and 1,800 emergency calls were made from that location, the county said.
The county alleged in its lawsuit that guards at the property enforced a phony 9 p.m. curfew, and forced tenants to pay them or trade sexual favors if caught. The county also alleged tenants were threatened with eviction if they reported code violations, multiple shootouts and other violent crimes were reported, and there were rodent infestations.
Macon-Bibb County filed its lawsuit in August 2023 and requested a superior court judge to declare Green Meadows Townhomes a public nuisance and to transfer management from the original owners, Green Meadows Housing Partners and Green Meadows Housing Management, to a receiver.
On the same day the lawsuit was presented to him, Senior Judge Bryant Culpepper granted Macon’s request.
“There is a clear need for a receiver to be appointed, both to abate the nuisance that currently exists and to ensure the residents who have been subjected to these conditions have to opportunity to live in an apartment complex that is safely and properly managed, or the time and ability to cancel their lease and seek adequate housing elsewhere,” Culpepper said in his ruling.
Culpepper said he could use his police power as a judge to immediately grant the county’s request to declare Green Meadows Townhomes a public nuisance and appointed attorney Boniface Echols as the receiver over Green Meadows Townhomes.
Roughly a month later, attorneys for the apartment complex requested to disqualify the receiver and vacate Culpepper’s order, saying they weren’t sufficiently notified of the complaint and the county’s intentions to have the court appoint a receiver, which violates their 14th Amendment right.
Further, Culpepper’s order was “an improper grant of an injunction without notice and an opportunity to be heard,” the townhomes attorneys said in court documents.
Judge Connie Williford, who was assigned to the case, denied the requests from Green Meadows Townhouses’ lawyers and argued that because the conditions at the apartment complex constituted a public nuisance, the decision to quickly appoint a receiver was justifiable by law.
Appointing the receiver was also legally permissible as the owners “have demonstrated an inability to control the property in a manner that provides a safe environment for the tenants at Green Meadows,” Williford ruled.
The attorneys for the apartment complex appealed, taking the case to Georgia appellate courts.
‘Absolutely no due process’
Stephen Dillard, judge for the Court of Appeals in Georgia, ultimately decided that the county took away a private property “with absolutely no due process.”
“(Green Meadows Housing Partners) owned and operated an affordable housing complex — a legitimate undertaking and not a nuisance per se — and, therefore, it was entitled to notice and a hearing prior to the Property being declared a nuisance,” the appellate judge decided.
The decision to appoint Echols was an abuse of discretion as well, Dillard ruled. Even though Macon-Bibb County argued that Culpepper and Williford held enough power to deal with a nuisance property in any way they see fit, “it fails to point to statutory authority or binding Georgia caselaw affirming the appointment of a receiver in any factual situation even remotely analogous to this one.”
These decisions that led to the owners of Green Meadows turning over the property to Echols were reversed and the Green Meadows Housing Partners returned as managers of the apartment complex, according to media reports.
Macon tried to get the Georgia Supreme Court to hear the case, but the state’s high court refused in late January, sending the case back to Superior Court.
This story was originally published February 21, 2025 at 12:00 PM.
