Judge rules against local developer in eminent domain case

A Carbon County judge recently ruled against a local developer in his fight to save land along Route 443 from eminent domain proceedings.

Common Pleas Judge Joe Matika overruled preliminary objections filed by Joseph Bennett, who was 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.

Matika’s ruling came down Jan. 21 following a court hearing in October.

“Clearly, this total taking, in the discretion of the condemnor was necessary, reasonable and prudent under the circumstances and condemnee presented no evidence to refute this issue,” Matika wrote in his ruling.

Bennett testified that 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.

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.

In his ruling, Matika said the fact that PennDOT’s witnesses testified to the project’s evolution since 2013; explained the extent to which surveys, studies and analysis were conducted; and considered, but rejected Bennett’s alternative, “affirms to this court that the decision, as laid out, and specifically that part dealing with the ultimate taking of Bennett’s properties, was well thought out and planned, and clearly an intelligent informed judgment exercised by PennDOT.”