Eminent Domain Report

The City of Visalia's road widening project at the Mooney Boulevard and Walnut Avenue intersection depends on the acquisition of a strip of private property necessary to relocate power poles.  According to the Visalia Times-Delta article, "Power poles, land acquisition trip up Visalia's plans for transforming Mooney/Walnut intersection," the necessary strip of land belongs to the owners of the Peachtree Shopping Center.  Those owners do not want the power poles on their property, and Visalia's City Council has therefore approved the use of eminent domain.

According to the owners ...

Yesterday, I spoke at the Appraisal Institute's 42nd Annual Litigation Seminar.  As usual, it was a great event, well attended by many of the top eminent domain appraisers in Southern California.  I spoke about recent developments in a presentation entitled "Eminent Domain: Where Are We, and Where Have We Been?"  [PDF] 

While I am confident that anyone in attendance would tell you I was brilliant, I want to focus today on some issues that arose in Ted Whitmer's presentation entitled Legal Instructions, Litigation & Appraisal Institute Standards.  Ted's firm, Appraiser Defense

With recreational travelers bound for Las Vegas and Laughlin combining with commuter traffic and freight movement, the junction of Interstate 15 and Interstate 215, known as the Devore interchange, likely qualifies as the the worst bottleneck on the I-15 in San Bernardino County.

And as Dug Begley reports today in a Press-Enterprise article titled Devore Interchange Discussed Today, the San Bernardino Association of Governments in planning to do something about it:

The interchange, a well-known bottleneck near where traffic enters and exits the Cajon Pass to the High Desert, is ...

Last night, the Riverside City Council approved the use of eminent domain to acquire the land necessary for the Five Points intersection project.  The project includes widening La Sierra and Hole avenues and Pierce Street, adding left turn lanes, and closing Bushnell Avenue off as a cul-de-sac at La Sierra.

According to the Press Enterprise article, "Riverside to spend $5 million on Five Points parcels," the City expects the acquisition to cost $5.4 million in order to compensate 15 property owners for land, furniture, and equipment.  Three landowners have reached deals, while the ...

The City of Corona has announced plans to extend its eminent domain authority in a downtown area which Corona feels is blighted.  The planned extension could impact businesses in the area, but Corona is carving out residential properties.  According to Riverside Press-Enterprise reporter Leslie Parrilla, in her November 16 article, "Public hearing on eminent domain area":

Hundreds of businesses are in the Main and Sixth Street area covered by the action. Not included would be residential properties within the Merged Redevelopment Project Areas.

Corona's current plans do not ...

With the completion of the I-5 widening project in Orange County north to the Orange County-Los Angeles County line, motorists cruised along the new, spacious lanes until they hit the County line, at which point an abrupt bottleneck brought them to a halt.  Now, the I-5 widening has commenced again, as the project moves north into Los Angeles. 

Across the county, the other major freeway connecting Orange and Los Angeles Counties, Interstate 405, could face a similar future.  The Orange County Transporation Authority has plans to widen the 405 freeway north from the 73 freeway to the ...

In 2003, the County of Riverside and the cities within western Riverside County formed the Western Riverside County Regional Conservation Authority (commonly known as the "RCA").  They delegated to the RCA the task of acquiring approximately 153,000 acres of privately owned property deemed necessary for habitat conservation under the Western Riverside County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan (the "MSHCP").

Many property owners whose land falls within the MSHCP conservation area find themselves with few options:  generally, they can either ...

According to the November 13, 2009, Desert Dispatch article "City seeks to reinstate eminent domain powers," the Barstow city council will decide next month whether the Barstow Redevelopment Agency's power of eminent domain should be reinstated after expiring last year.  The Redevelopment Agency believes the use of eminent domain may be necessary to remove blight in the area along East Main Street bordering the Marine Corps Logistics Base. 

The article reports that the Redevelopment Agency's chair, Tim Silva, believes eminent domain is a valuable tool, although he'd hate to ...

In 2006, what seemed to be a simple real estate transaction occurred:  the Jurupa Community Services District sold 4.3 acres of property it didn't need to Stadium Properties, which planned to re-zone the property and develop it with a mini-storage facility. 

The problem was that the Community Services Distrcit sold the property without first offering it to other public agencies, a requirement under California law (Government Code section 54222).  More problematic was that the Jurupa Area Recreation and Park District had purportedly been expressing interest in the property for ...