Looking for Eminent Domain advice

[John Neshiem]

Hi,

I was wondering if I could get some advice on Eminent Domain.

I bought my house in Inver Grove in 1998 along 70th street.  Dakota county sent notice about possible eminent domain to my family and 3 others. They had meetings a few months ago and said they would talk to us and our closest 3 neighbors in about what would happen in March. They have not sent us any more info yet.

We haven't heard anything back yet but they said they want the project to be completed in 2020. They are turning 70th into a 4 lane divied road with walking paths on both sides.

They said they may be able to move the road one way or the other but not by much. It looks like they will either take at least part of our yard or the whole house.

Our lot is .83/acre so I asked at the open house in December if we could move our house further into into lot. They started arguing and I never got an answer.

Our neighbors and I are wondering if we would be better off pressing the county for a meeting asap on this or if we should start getting appraisals now or start checking into eminent domain lawyers now?

We would really appreciate any advice at all.

Thanks!

[Matt Devincenzo]

I work as a land use consultant...and have been on both sides of this for condemnation due to a new development as well the new development receiving condemnation for improvements. The best advise is to hire an attorney specialized in land use or condemnation ect. The issue becomes the 'valuation' aspect, and their goal is to offset the value to the maximum extent possible. 

An example, we had a client that had a property take along their frontage appraised at 1.3M. I believe the 1.3M was assigned something like 800K in land value and 500K in re-design and physical improvement cost (we had an approved but not yet built 45 unit apartment addition to the existing 135 units which required design revisions). They then determined in the appraisal that the 'extra' value of building the new traffic improvement would increase their property value by 1M! So the property owner would be compensate 300K in actual cash....if you'll notice our client would have been out of pocket for 200K after getting their payment and then paying for the re-design and the reconstruction needed.

I tell you that to say that our client's attorney argued the point, provided case law, and (I believe) had their own appraisal to demonstrate a value that was more in line with what they considered fair. I'm not sure the final resolution as that isn't my part of the job, but needless to say the municipality is doing this everyday somewhere and they aren't just going around paying the maximum they possibly can. You may not need your attorney for another year, but giving him the time to get his ducks in a row now will make sure he helps document anything that might help later.

Also a side note just to put you at some ease...this doesn't have to be figured out for the improvement to begin so don't worry too much about that part of the timeline. What happens after an offer is made is the municipality can place money on deposit with the court and begin work. While the work is on-going the court case proceeds and gets sorted out. Starting early may allow you to get some re-design included to your benefit, but even if not there is still time for the court to sort things out while work proceeds so it doesn't need to be a scramble on your end. But again, give your attorney time to get their case together.