Homeowners Fight Eminent Domain
Residents say their homes weren't assessed at
fair market value.
By Liz Dahlem
|Tuesday, Dec 20, 2011
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/Homeowners-Fight-Eminent-Domain-135904278.html
Homeowners
stuck in the middle of an eminent domain battle in Waterbury have received more bad news. The
city’s final offer to buy their property to build a school is much lower
than they hoped.
Roy Thompson's
home was assessed at $139,000, but the city is offering him $111,000.
“All we want is
fair market value for our home. That's all we're asking for. Nothing more,
nothing less,” Thompson said. “We're paying taxes on an amount and you're
giving us an amount that is less than what we're paying taxes on.”
City officials
told NBC Connecticut
that the struggling real estate market didn’t give
them many options.
After two
appraisals, this is their final offer.
“The current
statues were put in place in an up market, where they could arrive at fair
market value; but in a depressed market, people wind up with a value less than
their assessed value on their home and to me that's not
fair," Democratic State Rep. Larry Butler said.
He tried to
increase the payout but had no luck. Now his focus is changing the law so this
doesn’t happen to another family.
“I'm going to
introduce legislation to fill that gap so that this doesn't happen to any other
family anywhere in the state of Connecticut,” Butler said.
Construction on
the school is supposed to start this winter. The Thompsons
and their two adopted sons want to stay in Waterbury, but can’t make an offer on a new
home until this eminent domain case is settled. They’re hiring an attorney and
hoping for the best.
“See if we can get
fair value market through the court system. At this point, that's really our
only avenue,” Thompson said.