THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 13, 1996 TAG: 9606130366
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 70 lines
In the end, the money never made Margaret Johnson any happier.
Two years after launching a battle with the school district for control of her land, a panel of experts on Wednesday awarded Johnson an additional $300,000 for property she argued was worth far more.
The ruling in Circuit Court ended a frustrating battle the city has waged to buy the land it needs to begin building a new Linkhorn Park Elementary School on First Colonial Road, across from Virginia Beach General Hospital.
``They evicted me by court order,'' the dispirited widow said. ``They took advantage of me. They just kept blasting away until they evicted me. I'm leaving Virginia Beach. I'm going to live in Chesapeake. What else can I do? The government hasn't been fair to me, the little guy.''
The city sees her claim differently. Wednesday's ruling brought the total amount it will pay for her 6.5-acre parcel to $1.3 million, about $414,000 less than she wanted.
The city already had paid $2.8 million for an adjoining 9.7-acre parcel once owned by the Potter estate, whose family members developed the Hilltop shopping centers. Together the two parcels will serve as the site for a new $12 million, 750-student school, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 1998.
The issue centered on a 2.8-acre portion of Johnson's land, at the rear of the lot, which the city argued was not developable because it fell under the jurisdiction of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act.
The act, in some cases, restricts the way land can be developed and thus limits its value as commercial property. If that portion of her land fell under the act, it would be worth just 10 percent of the remaining land, which was determined to have a fair market value of $294,000 an acre.
Without commenting on the issue itself, a five-person panel of commissioners, who are held in reserve by the courts to adjudicate land condemnation cases, split the difference and awarded Johnson about half of what she wanted.
Her attorneys, Edward R. Bourdon Jr. and T. Scott Carnes, had argued before Circuit Court Judge Jerome B. Friedman and the commissioners that the city was being duplicitous based on its past actions.
During a 1991 civil engineering project called the Wolfsnare Ditch Project, the city dug up about 1,100 feet of ditch and replaced it with a drainage pipe, which ended at Johnson's property. Bourdon argued if the city could do that then, why did it now claim that a portion of Johnson's property was protected by the Chesapeake Bay act.
Much of the testimony in the two-day trial centered on how best to define the soil conditions that would lead one to the conclusion the land fell under the act's protection.
The city's answer to the Wolfsnare project was that the act allowed exceptions for public projects, a claim that caused Bourdon to scoff.
``There are hundreds of miles of pipes in this city built by developers for housing projects, pipes, sewers and roads that are then turned over to the city once the project is done,'' he said after the ruling.
L. Steven Emmert, an assistant city attorney who argued the case on behalf of the school district, called for ``just compensation, not bonus compensation.'' Emmert said the decision was ``within the realm of fair compensation.''
Samuel R. Ames Sr., a retired insurance executive who served on the commission, said, ``We looked at it from the point of view of what a reasonable person would pay. The back part of the property was not worth as much as the front.'' ILLUSTRATION: B\W Photo
Margaret Johnson lost a battle with the city to keep her Virginia
Beach property. The court awarded her $414,000 less than she wanted
for it.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOLS VIRGINIA BEACH CITY COUNCIL
RULING LAND PROPERTY by CNB