After sitting on the Richmond City Council’s agenda for months, a pending sale of city property to a state delegate has been withdrawn as officials continue to debate how to handle unsolicited offers for publicly owned land.

Democratic Del. Delores McQuinn is pushing to buy a small city-owned plot next to her Henrico County home that she says is causing trouble for her and her husband because the city has left it unused and unattended.

The city purchased the property in 1994 for a natural gas transmission facility that was never built, and officials say the city has had no use for it since. The McQuinns have offered $6,500 for it, a little more than the assessed value of $6,300.

The proposed sale of the land was on the Council’s agenda for Monday’s meeting, but was abruptly withdrawn just a few hours beforehand.

In an interview last month, McQuinn said the unkempt city property was causing issues with leaves, downed trees and occasional snakes nesting in the overgrowth and slithering over the property line.

“It really shook me when we saw copperheads,” McQuinn said. “I’ve got three grandbabies.”

More often than not, McQuinn said, she and her husband were left spending their own time and money to deal with issues on the adjacent land. McQuinn said she has no plans to build anything on the lot, except for a possible chicken coop.

During one of several phone calls about the property, McQuinn said, the city indicated it was willing to part with the land.

“I was told that it's going to become surplus property, obsolete property. And I said well if that’s the case, we’ve been doing all this work all these years, maybe we need to see if we can just purchase that property,” McQuinn said. “It’s so close to us. It’s going to always be a problem unless someone is giving it 24/7 attention.”

Last year, the city seemed to be moving forward with selling the land to the McQuinns without entertaining other offers. However, several first-term Council members questioned why the city would sell a public asset without competition. That drew pushback from other Council members, who said the city shouldn’t insist on competitive bidding rules it hasn’t rigorously enforced in the past.

McQuinn’s status as a local political figure who previously served on the City Council appears to be adding to the sensitivities surrounding the matter. Competitive bidding could presumably help the city avoid any appearance of favoritism for the well-connected, but some Council members have argued it would be unfair to change the rules mid-process based on who the prospective buyer is.

The situation eventually led to two competing ordinances landing on the Council’s agenda: One to sell the land to the McQuinns without competitive bidding and another to put it out for bids and see if any other offers come in.

Mayor Danny Avula’s administration pulled both ordinances off the agenda ahead of Monday’s meeting. According to a spokesperson, that move was meant to restart the process.

“The mayor withdrew the two items because he wants to ensure the city has a comprehensive, consistent process in place for declaring surplus property and moving toward any potential sale,” said Avula spokesperson Mira Signer. “We look forward to developing and clarifying that process, and bringing items forward in a way that reflects that consistency.”

Under a policy enacted in 2017, the Council cannot sell property in response to an unsolicited offer unless the Council has formally designated the property as surplus and put out either an invitation for bids or a request for proposals. That policy essentially means the city will first signal its willingness to sell a piece of real estate by declaring it surplus, then follow a process open to all interested buyers instead of the first person to make an offer.

However, the city has an informal tradition of voiding its own written policies on unsolicited offers.

To get around those rules, the Council has made a habit of passing ordinances that declare property surplus and approve a sale at the same time. Those ordinances have also included language waiving the competitive bidding rules laid out in the city code.

“We cannot hold strong to the policy if we haven’t followed the policy to begin with,” Councilor Nicole Jones (9th District) said at a committee hearing in the fall. “If we are going to institute a policy, we can’t just do it on the fly.”

Councilor Andrew Breton (1st District), one of the members who suggested the city follow competitive bidding with the McQuinn deal, said at that meeting that he wasn’t looking to create a new policy, he was simply asking that existing policy be followed.

“I see a policy that’s eight years old that we could be following,” Breton said.

McQuinn said she’s only following the process the city had in place when she expressed interest in the land next to her house. She said she finds it “a little disconcerting” that the city seems unable or willing to do the same.

She said it’s ultimately up to the Council to decide whether competitive bidding should or shouldn’t be required for deals like the one she has pending. But the process shouldn’t change, she said, “based on one situation.”

“All I’m asking is for them to be consistent. I was. I went through the process that has been there,” McQuinn said. “One of the things that I have taken pride in over the years is to be fair to people. Just be fair.”

It’s not clear when the Council might take up the issue again. Because the ordinances were fully withdrawn instead of being delayed, the mayor or the Council will have to introduce a new plan later.

Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org