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As construction on the South Hollywood Road widening project continues, questions remain regarding some of the now public-owned strips of land along the current highway.
In order to acquire the necessary land to widen the road adequately, Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government – with an 80 percent financial backing from the Federal Highway Administration – had to purchase the strips of land in full title from the landowners.
Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government Project Manager Al Levron said the parish then hired two separate DOTD-qualified appraisers to conduct appraisals of the land tracts.
“The two appraisals came in, and the two appraisals were sent to a third review appraiser, an employee of the State of Louisiana DOTD. He made the determination what the fair market value or the extent of the compensation that should be offered to the property owner,” Levron explained.
Levron said the appraisers considered the full value of the land and potential money lost from not having the land into their appraisals. From there, a negotiator contacted the property owners and presented the government’s offer.
“The property owner can say, ‘I think you overlooked this,’ and, if there’s any validity to it, [DOTD] may adjust the offer,” he said. “At the end of the day, we either agree or we don’t agree on value.”
If the parties agree, the property is sold and the landowner receives a check. If not, the landowner has the right to provide adequate justification to support the value he wants. If the parish does not support the landowner’s claim, it has the right to expropriation where it takes the landowner to court and effectively seizes the land while placing what it considers fair market value in the registry of the court.
“The person can go remove that money from the registry of the court and they can basically disagree with our findings and we can litigate or continue to negotiate the valuation through the legal process,” Levron said.
In total, the parish provided just less than $4.38 million, averaging roughly $125,000 per parcel of land, to landowners. However, not all parcels provided similar economic opportunities to owners and varied from just a few thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
According to a public records request, eight of the 35 ownerships acquired required expropriation.
The only remaining parcels involved in expropriation litigation are owned by Henry Richard, Trapp Chevrolet and Timothy Duplantis, according to Levron.
Richard, who was offered $434,624 for the land in front of his restaurant supply business, feels he deserves more. Because he built his front parking lot close to the road years before any talk of widening the road surfaced, he now wonders what lengths he’ll have to take to create adequate parking.
“We didn’t agree with the values they placed on it,” Richard said. “It was ridiculous the values, the buildings they looked at to compare us to from metal buildings on the East Side, no retail, it was terrible. So that’s where we disagree on a dollar amount to make us whole.”
Richard said he hired his own experts to assess the situation.
“I don’t know what the solution is, if we need to relocate. The experts are all working on it trying to come up with something that’s palatable. We’d love to stay there. That’s why we built there,” he said. “ … We run quite a few businesses out of there, and if we can’t get clients to come in at times, it’s like any other business. You need every client you can get at any time. Not just for Christmas and not just for one day in August. You need to be available when the customer decides to come to you. So, again, they want me to shrink. The question is, how to we get compensated for that?”
Richard said litigation proceedings with the parish will begin in either December or January 2015. Until the situation is resolved, Richard said his business will be hampered; however, he remains staunchly a supporter of the project. He amicably allowed the parish to buy other properties along South Hollywood Road – ones he built after plans were released, specifically far enough off the road to satisfy expansion.
“We didn’t disagree that they need to widen it. I’ve always said that I think it’s a wonderful concept. It’s going to be great,” Richard said. “ … I think it’s a great project, but [Richard’s Restaurant Supply] has been growing for years. We’re not shrinking. We need more space for parking, but I whole-heartily agree with the widening. It should have been done years ago.”
Richard said he does not yet know how much would be needed to make him whole, and he could not estimate how long the court case could take.
Up South Hollywood Road a little, Gerald Collins, secretary of Woodmen of the World Life Insurance Society said they were happy with the expropriation dollars they received of $13,686
“Regardless of what we decided to do, the expropriation was going to happen, so we decided to allow the expropriation by the parish. We were happy. We didn’t lose that much property in front of our building,” Collins said. “…We were well-satisfied, and we will be satisfied when it’s completed.”
The delayed-many-times-over project that has been in the works for roughly 20 years is slated for completion within 490 days. The land acquisition phase lasted from 2008-13, according to Levron.
Other landowners along South Hollywood Road, including those still involved in litigation, did not grant an interview request by The Times by press time.
The land in front of Richard’s Restaurant Supply, although owned by the parish through expropriation, is one of three parcels along South Hollywood Road in which the expropriation value remains in negotiations and litigations.
