A man has filed a lawsuit against the state of North Carolina over a plan to build a bypass for US-74 around Shelby, reports wbtv.com.
Walker Cassidy has been fighting NCDOT for almost a decade, but he recently decided he’d had enough.
“They told me basically they didn’t want me on my own land. The more you push me, the more I push back,” Cassidy said. The Pageland, South Carolina man says he was given nearly 73 acres on Fairview road in Shelby a decade ago, by a dear friend.
“I thought we were in a free country. I really thought we had some real rights and whenever they tell you they don’t want you making footprints on your own land, that makes you feel pretty bad,” Cassidy said.
He wanted to build a home on the property, but every permit he submitted was denied. That’s because those 73 acres sit in an NCDOT protected corridor. The Highway 74 Bypass is supposed to run right through where Cassidy wants to build.