California Eminent Domain Report

In California eminent domain cases, appraisers typically have relatively wide latitude in determining fair market value for the property to be acquired. However, there are certain rules they must follow, and when an appraiser violates those rules, the appraiser’s opinion may be completely stricken, leaving a property owner or a public agency with no valuation evidence. This is precisely what happened in a new unpublished California Court of Appeal decision, Solano Transportation Authority v. Anderson (2021 Cal.App. Unpub. LEXIS 2129), where the property owners’ ...

The City of Benicia recently secured funding to build the Benicia Industrial Park Bus Hub, a project that has been on the City's drawing board for years. But there are still some hurdles to construction.  The City will need to acquire at least one parcel for the project, and the owners of the parcel have questioned whether the City’s environmental review of the project is adequate.  The owners also have expressed concerns about the impacts of the project on their taco truck business.  But the City is confident that it can resolve these issues and just adopted a mitigated negative ...

California continues to move forward with more infrastructure improvement projects.  According to an article in the Daily Republic, Agency starts eminent domain proceedings for I-80/680 project, the Solano Transportation Authority and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) are embarking on a $100 million-plus project to improve traffic flow near the Interstates 80 and 680 interchange.  The project includes widening the freeway and constructing new on-ramps at the Green Valley Road interchange.

In order to move forward with project construction ...