Charlottesville seeks eminent domain for road project

Charlottesville officials will attempt to exercise eminent domain to acquire the land necessary for Hillsdale Drive Extended’s first section, which is being built as a part of the new Whole Foods grocery store.

The city is trying to get roughly 1.5 acres that are privately owned to start the multimillion-dollar road project, which would begin before the store’s construction. Those behind the new Whole Foods — Meadowbrook Creek, LLC is developing the property at 1801 Hydraulic Road under a 99-year ground lease that began in 1964 — agreed that the first portion of Hillsdale Drive Extended would be built as a condition of the project.

But the road, designed to connect Hydraulic Road through the Seminole Square shopping center to Hillsdale Drive in Albemarle County, cannot be constructed until the land has been designated for public use.
“It is a major public right of way,” Councilor Satyendra Huja said in an interview, referring to the road.
“We would have preferred that it would have been [negotiated]. But the negotiations haven’t been fruitful so far,” he added.
The City Council will take up the matter at tonight’s meeting, because state law requires that the governing body of any locality authorize condemnation proceedings only after a public hearing. If councilors adopt the resolution, the action will be filed in Charlottesville Circuit Court.

Ivy resident Michie Bright has said in past interviews that she co-owns the Charlottesville land where the street is supposed to be built. Bright did not return calls for comment Sunday, but the staff memo that councilors have received says that negotiations are ongoing, and the city and the property owner have not come to an agreement about the land’s fair market value.
“We anticipate that negotiations between the parties will continue in an attempt to reach a voluntary resolution of this matter,” the memo stated.
In an interview, Councilor Julian Taliaferro said, “Most of the time, there’s usually … resolution to the issues when that situation occurs. And I guess that could still happen.”
Taliaferro said that the action might be necessary if the project is for the greater public good, but, he said, “I always kind of hate to invoke eminent domain.”

The $30.5 million project has encountered a number of obstacles as it tries to come to fruition. Although roughly $3.1 million has been spent so far, state funding has all but dried up. The Virginia Department of Transportation’s current Six-Year Improvement Program draft shows no financing for the project through fiscal 2015.
“It’s not just a few years behind, there’s no VDOT funding for it,” city Planning Commissioner Cheri Lewis said of the connector road at the body’s meeting last week. The Planning Commission revisited the proposed grocery last week after developers submitted a new site plan showing a 40,000-square-foot building, considerably smaller than the 66,600-square-foot store originally envisioned. Whole Foods plans to relocate from its 27,000-square-foot store in the Shoppers World shopping center in Albemarle once the new store is open.

Additionally, with the planned expansion of the Regal Cinema 4 movie theater just behind Kmart, the bigger building would sit right in Hillsdale’s path. At least some part of the existing theater had been planned to be demolished to make way for the thoroughfare.
According to the city staff’s memo, developers have agreed to pay for any land acquisition costs related to the first section of Hillsdale Drive Extended, as well as any attorney fees incurred by the city during court proceedings.