DATE: Thursday, November 13, 1997           TAG: 9711130503
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   62 lines

CHURCH ST. BUSINESSMAN WINS BETTER PRICE FOR LOT

Don't tell Willie Cooper that it's useless for a little man to challenge the big system. Because he did, and won.

Cooper, whose used-car lot was condemned by the Virginia Department of Transportation for the final widening of Church Street, won a court ruling this week for twice the money that VDOT had offered to pay.

The state was willing to pay $100,000. Cooper was awarded $200,000.

The decision was returned Monday in Norfolk Circuit Court by a jury of five ``commissioners'' selected to hear the condemnation case by attorneys representing Cooper and VDOT. All of the commissioners were Norfolk property owners.

Cooper, who had operated Quality Auto Sales at 3100 Granby St. for 11 years, said he wasn't opposed to the widening project. He said he just wanted a fair deal.

``If you believe you're right, you just stand up for your rights,'' Cooper said. ``It's as simple as that.''

Cooper said he has relocated to Sewells Point Road, a move he says has hurt business because the traffic volume is much less than on Church Street. According to a VDOT traffic count, more than 25,000 cars travel Church Street daily, said Norfolk attorney Joseph T. Waldo, who represented Cooper.

``Receiving the fair value of this property will let me get the business going again,'' Cooper said in a statement.

VDOT officials said Wednesday that the state had reached agreements with property owners to buy 89 of the 115 parcels needed to accommodate the final widening of Church Street to four lanes from two along a 1.2-mile stretch between Goff and Granby streets.

R.R. ``Jack'' Chapman, the district right-of-way and utilities manager for VDOT in Suffolk, said the remaining 26 parcels are in dispute over price.

Waldo said another Church Street property owner he had represented received $42,000 more for his property after challenging VDOT's offer in court.

``I think it says that the DOT is not always right,'' Waldo said, ``and in (Cooper's) case was off by $100,000, which is a significant amount.''

In a written statement after the verdict, Waldo said, ``The real tragedy is that there were several Church Street property owners who took the first offer and now don't seem to have enough to relocate successfully.''

More than two dozen black-owned businesses are being displaced by the widening, but most don't own the property.

Cooper, who is black, is one who does.

At issue in Cooper's case was VDOT's appraisal of the property.

It involved a method known as the ``cost'' approach, in which a property is valued based on the sales price of similar or comparable properties on the market.

Waldo argued that the properties chosen by VDOT's appraiser weren't comparable to Cooper's and were lower-priced. He presented expert witnesses and an appraisal that disputed the state's findings on the value of the lot, which includes a two-bay garage, an office, a waiting room and a rest room.

VDOT's counsel, Chesapeake attorney James Webb Jones, argued that the appraisal was fair and done by a qualified Norfolk firm, John C. Harry Inc., that has handled most of the appraisals for the Church Street project.

Jones said that the firm used several methods to appraise Cooper's property, but that the cost approach came up with the highest value, the $100,000 that VDOT offered.

Jones said that VDOT has 10 days to appeal the court ruling but that he doubts the state will.

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