Bennett takes PennDOT to court
A local developer’s quest to save his property from eminent domain action hit the courtroom on Thursday afternoon.
Joseph Bennett is challenging the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s attempt to take his land along Route 443 next to Aldi’s for stormwater basins related to an upcoming road widening and improvement project along the thoroughfare.
During testimony in front of Carbon County Common Pleas Judge Joseph J. Matika, Bennett said he purchased the property near the end of 2017 with the intent of developing the site for a Kentucky Fried Chicken location, among other commercial business. Upon learning of PennDOT’s plans to use the property for infiltration and detention basins, Bennett asked for a meeting with the department and its engineers, when he suggested they locate the basins on a property to the rear of his owned by the Rudelitsch estate.
“We met with PennDOT at the site in May 2018 and showed them where a pond would be better located,” Bennett said. “The whole point of the 443 project is to widen the road to create better access to the large number of businesses along that road. Nobody is going to turn off there to go to a pond. They are going to go to a KFC. There were other alternatives to accomplish PennDOT’s goal. The property in the back was less valuable and a better fit.”
According to testimony taken Thursday, PennDOT responded 32 days later and said the change couldn’t be made. It filed the declaration of taking against Bennett in December 2018.
Joseph Digirolamo, an engineer with Taylor Wiseman & Taylor, who was contracted by PennDOT to work on the project design, said they began analysis in 2012.
“Over the course of the next three to four years, we evaluated every option we could,” Digirolamo said. “We took into account almost every environmental concern you can think of. We evaluated the whole 443 corridor and the Bennett property, in our opinion, was the best location for these basins.”
Digirolamo said his firm did a sketch to determine whether the basins would fit on the Rudelitsch property and determined they would not. No further testing, he said, was done to determine the feasibility of locating the basins there.
Bennett’s attorney, Francis Hoegen, argued that by May 2018, when Bennett met with PennDOT and Digirolamo, design plans were so far along that PennDOT did not even want to consider moving the basins because of the delays it would have caused for both continued design and the start of construction.
“It took two to three years to get to final design and determine the Bennett property was best for the basins, but in just 32 days you determined relocation was not a possibility,” Hoegen said. “Had PennDOT taken more time and care, Mr. Bennett could have pursued his commercial development.”
According to Digirolamo, 1,500 feet of additional pipe would have been necessary to run the drainage back to the Rudelitsch property.
“We had no environmental clearances for that property at that point,” Digirolamo said. “It would have likely cost another $200,000 from a design standpoint and another year to fully study whether that area could support basins.”
Greg Haas of Carbon Engineering testified on Bennett’s behalf and said it would have been “very feasible” to relocate the basins to the north of Bennett’s property.
Hoegen planned to call an additional witness, an appraiser, to testify regarding the loss of revenue to Bennett over PennDOT’s decision to take his land. Bennett said that instead of being located on his property, the KFC will now be built between McDonald’s and the PennDOT driver’s license center further west along Route 443, and a Wendy’s, which had also been planned for his site, will now be where pediatrician Dr. Narenda Ambani’s office is located.
PennDOT’s attorney, Robert Kopacz, countered, saying the department would have compensation conversations with Bennett, but that was for an other day.
Matika gave Hoegen seven days to present any case law showing why Bennett’s loss of revenue was applicable to Thursday’s argument, before ruling on Bennett’s objections.
Comments
PENN DOT starts a stupid and absurd fight with someone that has a few bucks to defend himself. Lawyers are paid, the courts are paid, the system is used, everyone pays.
Then, PENN DOT uses common sense logic, and will concede with some authoritarian restriction, and Voila. Back where we all were a year earlier, just more poor as individuals and a community, and more frustrated with the illogic of a system. PENN DOT has every right to be stupid, and use prime frontage real estate for non prime purposes. Even to mention of using eminent domain probably damaged the man's property value. Would you buy it from him if he was selling it after reading this article?
Then, we realize the purpose of the system is cash flow, and those rewarded most are those making the most absurd arguments, siphoning the cash flow from the sreationnof a physical device or structure to an intellectual game of cat and mouse.
The consumer is the only payer in our system. So if PENN DOT loses or argues we pay, and if Penn dot 'wins' with absurdity, we pay. War games taught us that the only way to win is to not play these illogical games of absurdity, ensuring endless mutual consumption by use of a system that profits from abusive use.
Sincerely,
Citizen David F. Bradley Sr.
Will the cabal of the LASD join with Bennett and spend taxpayer money with their litigation happy solicitor to help KFC keep the road front and become a LASD taxpayer? This reeks of PENN DOT not supporting the children.
After all, how will the Hometown team be able to take enough taxes to fund their massive budget increases if PENN DOT uses their eminent domain?
Immoral hometown taxers could destroy our community if they are allowed to continue down the path of over consumption and failed oversight.
Andrew Yenser failed to provide proper oversight in the transition of business managers. Where is his apology, and resignation?
Sincerely,
Citizen David F. Bradley Sr.