Of the $42,000, the city of Roanoke Rapids will have to pay $17,787, City Manager Joseph Scherer said at least week's city council meeting.

Scherer told council the city's share of the settlement will be debited on its property tax payment to the county.

A memorandum of a mediated settlement conference notes plaintiffs in the case will dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice. The payment, the document said, constitutes action to avoid future litigation expenses.

The mediated settlement was signed on November 26 and county commissioners approved the settlement following a closed session at their meeting last Monday.

The settlement ends a dispute between the residents of Brandy Creek and the city, a dispute that also included the county and Weldon City Schools that was scheduled to go to trial in January.

“I think this settlement is a great victory for the people,” said Mark Dorosin, an attorney for the UNC Center for Civil Rights, which represented the Brandy Creek community, along with local attorney Bettina Roberts-Flood. “The residents have been fighting for a long time from the sale of Carolina Crossroads, from the surprise annexation and lack of services.”

Dorosin credited the residents of the community for continuing to fight. “I know the residents are very excited at this being resolved. I don't think they would have got what they did if they hadn't continued to fight. Everyone in Halifax County got a bad deal. They got it the worst. The settlement acknowledges they have been treated unfairly.”

Dorosin said he was pleased with the settlement. “This is a step in healing the community. They still have vacant property and are having problems with rodents, snakes and vermin.”

A statement released by the center today further expounds upon the settlement, with Dorosin calling it, “a milestone in the residents’ struggle for justice following the failed plans to develop the Carolina Crossroads entertainment district and the Roanoke Rapids Theater in their neighborhood.”

The case, according to Dorosin, focused on the county’s 2007 property tax revaluation, which increased land values in Brandy Creek by an average of 800 percent and as high as 1,400 percent, while the rest of the county went up approximately 20 percent. “The resulting property tax bills created an intense hardship for residents, forcing many to forgo everyday expenses like groceries and medical care,” he said. “Those who had retired went back to work, paychecks and bank accounts were garnished by the county, and several had to take out high interest rate loans to pay the tax bills to avoid losing their homes.”

Despite the community’s successes, residents still live with the impacts of the failure of Carolina Crossroads. A real estate company that bought several parcels in 2006, evicted the tenants who had been living there for years, resulting in the loss of almost half of the neighborhood, he said.

The residents filed the lawsuit against Halifax County, Roanoke Rapids, and Weldon City Schools, since all three local governments received a portion of what Dorosin described as illegally inflated property taxes.

Roanoke Rapids and Weldon were later dismissed from the suit but signed an agreement with the county that each would be responsible for its proportionate share of any judgment or settlement.

The school district will responsible for 12 percent of the settlement.