capitolstreets news
Bad Blood Over Old Land Deal Threatens to Make Streetcar Line More Costly by Lex Kiefhaber
T
he District of Columbia may be forced to take, by eminent domain, a piece of land crucial to the completion of the H Street Trolley. Potomac Development Corporation, the owner of the 0.15498 acres below the Hopscotch Bridge, is reluctant to cooperate with the District over the use of land because of how the government mistreated them in the past. That previous action by the government, and the sentiment of wrongdoing it fostered with PDC, now jeopardize negotiations crucial to the District’s plan to connect the H St. Trolley to Union Station. If the District does not reach an agreeable settlement with PDC, they will be forced to take the land through eminent domain—a process that will cost the city time and money.
What’s the Beef? In 2005 the District issued a notice of condemnation on two properties owned by PDC in close proximity to the proposed site for the Ballpark. As property values around the stadium steadily increased, PDC claims it was “forced to sit in a legal limbo in which they cannot sell, lease (other than short-term leases) or develop the properties.”
40 ★ HillRag | May 2011
With an order of condemnation looming in the indefinite future, PDC claims they could not effectively rent their properties (which consist of industrial warehouses, largely unsuitable for short-term leasing options), they could not invest in physical improvements which would be undone once the District acquired the property through eminent domain, and they could not sell them—since the District had already made public its intent to take the property, all that a prospective buyer stood to gain was a just compensation lawsuit against the District. Mr. Sullivan, the attorney representing PDC in its case against the District, testified that after two years of requesting information about when the District intended to follow through on the condemnation and take the property, the District finally “stonewalled” PDC, refusing to acknowledge PDC’s continued queries. This, Mr. Sullivan said, amounts to a “deliberate and unjustifiable government misconduct designed and successfully implemented to ensure that the defendants (the government) would be able to suppress the value of the plaintiffs’ (PDC’s) property.” Furthermore, PDC asserts that the District engaged in “gross miscon-
duct” when in June of 2009 the government fired the District appointed appraiser of PDC’s property “for submitting appraisals with too high valuations.” PDC then elected to abandon good-faith negotiations with the government and take their case to court. In order to win a favorable judgment, PDC must prove not only that the District has “taken” the property—demonstrating an imposed moratorium on development and restricting PDC’s ability to capitalize on its financial investment—but they must also convince the Judge that it was never the District’s intent to take the property. In his view, “this is not a case of mere ‘delay’ but of the defendants (the District) having actively, deliberately and consistently, over many years, preventing the plaintiffs (PDC) from making productive use of their properties.” He concluded his testimony with a simple summation of PDC’s grievance against the government: “the District has accomplished for itself what it said it was going to do by buying the properties—that is protect the properties from development—but it has done it without buying the properties.” The District, represented by Carl Schifferle, contends that the delay is
a function of ongoing planning and that the District has not intentionally or unreasonably prolonged taking the property. Mr. Schifferle said “that the government needs to make owners aware of their intentions to acquire property.” He continued saying that while “the highest and best use of this property could have been realized 5 years ago… the government is not responsible for the loss in value because there has not been a taking.” Essentially, the case hinges on whether Mr. Sullivan can prove that through issuing the order of condemnation the District effectually took the property. The case is currently before the District Court of Appeals, and will likely not be resolved until well after the District is scheduled to begin construction on streetcar line below the Hopscotch Bridge.
An Old Grudge, Revisited Although the land under the bridge and the property involved in Mr. Sullivan’s case are entirely unrelated, according to a source within the District Council, “it does seem that the negotiations between DDOT and PDC have just as much to do with a past taking as they do with getting the streetcar into Union Station.” Mr. Richard Bell, the President of PDC, said that “the District has been totally disingenuous with us from the beginning on the condemnation, and has promised us that they were going to take the property within a few months at least four or five separate times. So when you’re dealing with somebody that does that, and they come to you and they want to talk about another project, you have a tendency not to believe what they are saying.” Scott Kubly, the city’s point-