Eminent Domain Report

If you happen to be in Austin this week, stop by and see me at the ALI-ABA Eminent Domain Conference.  It starts Thursday, January 28 and runs through Saturday.  I'll be speaking Thursday afternoon on the condemnation of privately-held utility companies -- an issue that's certainly been in the press here in California recently.  I'll be speaking with Christopher Clough of Barron & Adler in Austin, and he's been "in the trenches" on a number of utility-company condemnation issues in Texas.

Aside from my session, there will be a lot of good presentations, including a national eminent domain ...

Public agencies are routinely facing Buy America requirements in their infrastructure projects.  Some of the most difficult situations involve how to satisfy Buy America obligations with public utility relocations.  The rules continue to evolve, making compliance an ever-moving target.  To help provide some guidance, my colleague, Ann-Therese Schmid, recently provided a Buy America update on Nossaman's InfraInsight Blog.

In her blog post, Recent Buy America Developments, Ann informs us that in late 2015 the Federal Transmit Administration (FTA) and the Federal Highway ...

The City of Menlo Park is proceeding with two transportation projects.  The first one, an undercrossing to separate bicycles and pedestrians from rail traffic at Middle Avenue, received the green light from the City Council on December 15.   The City has committed $210,000 and has authorized staff to apply for an additional $490,000 in San Mateo County Measure A sales tax funds to pay for preliminary engineering work on the project.  The City estimates that the design and construction of the undercrossing will cost approximately $11 million.

The City’s second project is the Ravenswood ...

Eminent domain practitioners have been waiting for nearly two years for the Supreme Court to issue its decision in Property Reserve v. Superior Court.  At issue is the constitutionality of California's "Right of Entry" statutes, which allow an agency to enter onto private property for certain inspections and testing without filing a condemnation action.  In Property Reserve, the Court of Appeal rejected an agency's efforts to conduct precondemnation testing and inspections, finding that the statutory procedure essentially amounts to allowing a taking without payment of just ...

Because billboards are typically near public transit, they are routinely impacted by public projects such as street widenings, highway and freeway expansions, and grade separation projects.  When impacted, billboard companies may make claims for (i) the value of the billboard itself (fixtures and equipment), (ii) loss of business goodwill, and (iii) relocation expenses.  Usually the first two items can be addressed through a successful billboard relocation.  But when happens when a moratorium is in place prohibiting new billboards?  Does a moratorium on new billboards ...

Every once in a while, infrastructure projects we're working on involve traversing Indian lands.  For those of you involved in such projects, you should take a look at the Final Rule published by the Department of the Interior, which went into effect last month.  The Federal Register summarizes the Final Rule as follows:

This final rule comprehensively updates and streamlines the process for obtaining Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) grants of rights-of-way on Indian land, while supporting tribal self-determination and self-governance.  This final rule further implements the ...

We've been following the status of highway and transportation funding for quite some time, previously noting that Congress kept kicking the can down the road without agreeing on a long-term solution.  Finally, that is no longer the case, as our colleagues on Nossaman's Infra Insight Blog note that the House and Senate Conference Committees have agreed on a compromise $305 billion five-year surface transportation authorization: the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, which is headed to the White House in the next few days.  Check out Billy Moore's post the Infra ...

When the government promises to do one thing and then does another, it usually has myriad excuses.  Sometimes it claims that its staff (the people with whom the opposing side are typically interacting) cannot bind the agency.  Other times, it claims that it cannot contractually agree to things that take away key government functions (e.g., the government cannot contract away its right to condemn property).  But every once in a while, the government gets stuck, even in the absence of a formal written agreement.

In HPT IHG-2 Properties Trust v. City of Anaheim (November 20, 2015), the Court ...

For decades, California public agencies have utilized a statutory "right of entry" procedure to gain access to private property to conduct investigations and testing before deciding whether to move forward with acquiring the property. (See Code of Civil Procedure section 1245.010 et seq.) That process was thrown into flux in 2014 with the Court of Appeal’s decision in Property Reserve v. Superior Court, which struck down an agency’s efforts to conduct precondemnation investigation and testing, concluding that any significant physical intrusion onto private property ...

For several years, we've been following an eminent domain lawsuit in Marin County involving Caltrans' acquisition of 34 acres for a $29.7 million interchange project at the Redwood Sanitary Landfill, which would widen the overpass over Highway 101 and install new frontage roads on both sides of the highway to create safer conditions for traffic going in and out of the landfill.  After a 20-day trial, the litigation has finally ended with a jury verdict that appears to be close to a split between the property owner's appraisal and Caltrans' appraisal.

According to an article in the ...