Laserfiche WebLink
<br />Mr. Dennis Welsch <br />January 6,2004 <br />Page 2 <br /> <br />Before advising the City on how to respond to this demand for an additional $25,000 to <br />$30,000 in compensation, I delved into these issues further in order to assess the strength of the <br />landowner's arguments. Counsel for Mr. Garley arranged for a conference call with his <br />appraiser, so I was able to question the appraiser directly on his position. I then spoke to both <br />Eric Bjorkland and Jason Messner, the City's appraisers, about the arguments that were made. <br /> <br />With respect to the parking space issue, the City's code requires two spaces for each <br />rental unit, which means a minimum of 190 spaces for the 95 units. The City's appraisers <br />stated in their report that, while several spaces were lost because of the new street, there were <br />still over 190 spaces left after the taking, so the code requirements are met and there are no <br />damages for that issue by itself. <br /> <br />The landowner's appraiser states that the parking lot had 190 spaces before the taking, <br />and only 181 to 183 afterwards, as evidenced by the professional striping job that was <br />completed. Mr. Bjorkland questions the accuracy of that statement. The only way to figure <br />this out for certain is for someone from the City to count the current spaces and verify that they <br />were striped properly (proper width and so forth). Only then will we know if there is an issue <br />here warranting additional consideration. <br /> <br />The reduced rent issue is a little more complicated. In a partial taking such as this, <br />severance damages are typically appropriate, and those damages are measured by the <br />difference between the value of the property immediately before the taking and the value <br />afterwards. The method by which that valuation is accomplished is not dictated by law; it is up <br />to the appraisers. The City's appraisers utilized both the sales comparison approach and the <br />income analysis approach to determine which worked better. Typically, in an investment <br />property such as this, the income approach is most appropriate. Here, however, the difference <br />between the before and after valuations using the income approach resulted in a damages of <br />only $20,000. That is the total estimated impact to the income stream of this property as a <br />result of building the new street. Or, to put it another way, the land taken accounted for only <br />$20,000 of the future income ofthis parcel ofpropeliy. <br /> <br />Simply valuing the land, as opposed to income, on the other hand, results in damages of <br />$55,000. In other words, if we ignore the income being generated from the land and just look <br />at the land itself as if it were vacant, the total parcel will drop in value by $55,000 simply <br />because there is less land than before. What this shows is that the land is worth more vacant <br />than as a factor in generating rental income for this apartment complex. That is because none <br />of the apartments are actually on the land that is being taken. Because using this approach <br />resulted in a larger figure, it was used as the measure of compensation by the City's appraisers. <br /> <br />Mr. Garley's appraiser is not arguing about the $55,000 calculation. Rather, he insists <br />that the rental income loss of $20,000 must be added to the $55,000 as a fonn of severance <br />