Road Plans Shock Residents

May 11, 2002 - Source: Meredith Barkley, Staff Writer

When a waist-high stake went up within feet of her townhouse, Barbara Smith figured it marked planned utility work.

It didn't, she discovered. It marked the right-of-way boundary for Painter Boulevard, the major freeway that will one day loop Greensboro. She was shocked. She could imagine cars whizzing past her Stagecoach Village townhouse at all hours.

"Once those flags are in the ground, you couldn't think of selling," Smith said. "It was just without warning."

An access road will come within 30 feet of her townhouse, and Painter itself, which will pass over West Friendly Avenue, will be within 125 feet. There will be no noise buffer between Stagecoach Village and Painter, but the highway will sit higher than the community as it tapers down from Friendly.

A right-of-way marker stands in the bushes beside the building in which Tracey G. Waye lives, and she's "very upset." She and others said that although they knew when they bought their homes that Painter would be nearby, they didn't realize it would be this close.

"Stagecoach was already there, and if you put Painter on the other side of that, it wasn't going to be anything too terrible," Waye said.

The project will take one building in the 105-unit community along Stage Coach Trail in west Greensboro. It will also take nearly an acre of the community's common area, including the community's entrance on Stage Coach Trail. The state Department of Transportation bought the building from its residents and has handed over $467,200 to compensate the homeowners association for the property taken and loss in value to the remaining common area.

But the transportation department says it won't pay homeowners such as Smith for any loss of value to their property caused by the highway. By state law, they say, unless the right-of-way touches a homeowner's property, the owner is not entitled to compensation.

"We've met with them for a year and had discussions and had arguments and pleaded with them," Smith said. "It doesn't seem to matter."

Her next-door neighbors, Jack and Sue Schoolfield, had planned to build a sun room out back. No more.

Said Joe Ritter, homeowners association president: "I don't think it's right. It hurts the value of all our property."

The homeowners association contests the transportation department's valuation of the common area it took as well as the loss in value to the rest of the common area. It hired Greensboro attorney Jeff Peraldo to investigate the compensation.

Peraldo expects to also seek a Superior Court ruling that the individual homeowners are entitled to compensation for the loss in value to their properties.

"Once you put this big old highway up against those town houses, are they going to be worth less?" Peraldo asks rhetorically.

Loss of value caused by a project, though, isn't the issue, state transportation officials say. Under state law, they say, the department only recognizes the claims of owners whose property is taken by a project. It does not recognize the claims of owners whose properties are close to a project, whether they've suffered a loss of value or not.

"This has always been the department's acquisition policy," said John Williamson, manager of the transportation department's right-of-way branch in Raleigh.

Williamson said complaints such as those from Stagecoach Village residents are common with highway projects.

"There's probably hundreds across the state, if not thousands, where we're coming into close proximity to buildings but not recognizing right-of-way claims," he said. The courts, he said, have sided with the transportation department in such cases.

Peraldo, though, argues that the department can't separate the common areas from individual town homes since the common area surrounds the homes.

"They're inseparable," he said. "One does not exist without the other. They're surely putting the pain in Painter on this one."

The transportation department expects to award contracts in August on the section of Painter that passes Stagecoach Village. Work could begin by October and take three years. The nearly five-mile stretch will take the highway from Interstate 40 north to Bryan Boulevard. Estimated price tag: $117.5 million.

Waye said: "We just really feel like the DOT is coming through with this road without any consideration or compensation or anything to the homeowners that it's affecting. All we want them to do is what is fair and what is right. We feel like we've been taken advantage of."


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