Brandon Tester | Daily Journal
                                The land the City of Rockingham is purchasing at 110 Byrd Drive includes the dilapidated New Life Tabernacle Church building. The city plans to demolish the building once the purchase is finalized.

Brandon Tester | Daily Journal

The land the City of Rockingham is purchasing at 110 Byrd Drive includes the dilapidated New Life Tabernacle Church building. The city plans to demolish the building once the purchase is finalized.

ROCKINGHAM — The City Council voted on Tuesday to purchase a 4.1-acre property located at 110 Byrd Drive for $7,500.

The purchase is part of Rockingham’s decades-long effort to purchase properties along Byrd Drive as they become available in order to limit public access to the city’s wastewater treatment plant. Byrd Drive is the plant’s main access road.

The property Council voted to purchase on Tuesday is one of the two properties adjacent to Byrd Drive that the city doesn’t own. The property includes the former New Life Tabernacle Church building, which hasn’t been used in several years and is in a state of disrepair.

“We would remove the building off of the property,” Assistant City Manager John Massey said. “That would allow us to close off Byrd Drive at that point.”

With the new purchase, the city now owns all of the properties located directly alongside Byrd Drive. There is still one other property the city has been interested in that borders the back side of the 110 Byrd Drive parcel and is located close to the intersection of Byrd Drive and River Road.

“There is no clear title for that property,” Massey said. “We’ve tried to buy it several times through the years.

“I don’t know if that property can ever be used with all of the title issues,” he added.

Per the most recent revaluation, the tax value of the 4.1 acres the city is purchasing is $134,302 — but the church structure accounted for $122,739 of that value. The value of the land itself is listed at $11,563.

The tax value of the property Massey said doesn’t have a clear title is $6,918. The property’s deed isn’t posted on Richmond County’s Geographic Information System map. The parcel’s property taxes haven’t been paid since the owners paid their delinquent 2017 taxes in October 2018.

Reach Brandon Tester at [email protected] or 910-817-2671. Follow him on Twitter @BrandonTester.