Real Estate & Property Law

City of Rogers Files Eminent Domain

By Alan Ackerman

NWAnews.com

With negotiations stalling, the city of Rogers is going through with its threat to use eminent domain at the Rogers Municipal Airport.

The city was negotiating with four leaseholders who controlled three hangars at the airport. Dealings with two of the four have proven unsuccessful.

Deputy City Attorney Jim Clark filed one suit against Lemore Inc. in circuit court Monday. Attorney Tom Kieklak was expected to file a similar suit against Mike Moser on behalf of the city because of a relationship between Moser and the city, but Kieklak was unavailable for comment.

The airport is currently expanding its taxiways, thanks to Federal Aviation Administration grants, and the hangars involved in the suits are in the way of the expanded taxiway A. In both cases, the city offered the leaseholders 115 percent of the appraised value of their lease and their hangars, which is the threshold for FAA reimbursements. City Attorney Ben Lipscomb said negotiations failed, even though the leaseholders did not provide the city with counter-appraisals.

The eminent-domain lawsuit would allow a court to determine the fair value of the properties. In February, when the City Council approved the use of the lawsuits, Mayor Steve Womack said the FAA might be willing to reimburse more than 115 percent of the appraised value if such an amount was awarded by the court.

Airport expansion and hangar valuations are technical and have many pitfalls for which improper values and effective "low balling" of owners with unfairly low appraisals and offers are commonplace. 

Full post as published by National Eminent Domain Blog on March 23, 2009 (boomark / email).