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Growing
Pains: Eminent Domain Pitting City Against Small Business Owner
First steps
taken to condemn liquor store in the 2000 block of West Compton
Boulevard for planned mixed-use development
By
Allison Jean Eaton
Bulletin Staff Writer
COMPTON – For
Javier Ortiz, the liquor store he owns on the corner of Compton Boulevard
and Central Avenue is his little piece of the American Dream.
And right now, he feels like that dream is slipping away.
The Community Redeve-l-opment Agency (CRA) in its mission to eliminate
blight plans to transform the area where Ortiz’s F & C Liquor
has operated for decades into a mixed-use residential/commercial development.
Earlier this month it successfully took the first steps toward seizing
Ortiz’s property through eminent domain.
Eminent domain is the power of state and local governments to seize
private property for public use. The 5th Amendment and articles in
many state constitutions, including California’s, allow the practice
provided that just compensation is provided.
Much to Ortiz’s dismay, the City Council acting as the Urban
Community Develop-ment Commission March 4 approved a resolution of
necessity to initiate condemnation proceedings to acquire his parcel
of land at 2000 W. Compton Blvd.
The potential loss stands to be far greater than just the business,
and Ortiz and his wife, Hilda, are scared.
Ortiz said that if they lose the business, the Pico Rivera couple will
likely lose their home. They took out a second mortgage on it roughly
four years ago when Ortiz purchased the store from his former employer
of nearly 15 years.
Hilda said that F & C is more than just a liquor store for hundreds
of customers in the surrounding neighborhoods.
“Even though we have a liquor store, we help a lot of people
around here, too” she said. “We sell more than just alcohol.”
That help sometimes comes in the form of a free, home-cooked meal on
holidays for some of the area’s homeless or motivational talks
with neighborhood youth on staying out of gangs, Ortiz said.
“A lot of the womans, they are on drugs and alcohol. We push
them to go to different programs, and we are so happy when we can help
them
and give them advice,” Hilda added.
“This is very painful,” said Ortiz. “I spend a lot
of time in this community and I consider myself part of this community.
I am
a part of Compton.”
According to CRA Director Dr. Kofi Sefa-Boakye, the city has not only
made Ortiz an offer to purchase his land and business that includes
anticipated loss of good will, but has also “extended an olive
branch” by offering to allow him to be part of the new development.
Ortiz, he said, turned down both offers.
Ortiz said he was first contacted by the city in July 2006. At that
time, the city asked him to name his price, which he did.
Twelve months went by before the city finally made Ortiz an offer,
he said. And when it did, the amount was only half of what Ortiz said
he and his wife thought the business and land are worth.
At this point, the city advised Ortiz to obtain an appraisal, which
he did. The appraisal came close to what Ortiz had originally asked
for, and the city commissioned its own independent appraisal.
Despite the city’s appraisal’s valuing the property at
$100,000 more than it had originally been appraised at, the city’s
next offer was only $10,000 more, Ortiz said.
Thus far into the process, Ortiz has still not obtained a lawyer mainly
because he can’t afford one. But he added that he has faith that
he and the city will work things out in a positive manner, even if
his livelihood is being threatened.
“I don’t want to get a lawyer; we’re from the same
community,” he
said. “I want to keep it friendly.”
Ortiz acknowledged that the city did offer him to be a part of the
new development, but he’s uneasy because no one has told him
exactly what will be built there.
In July 2007, the city entered into an exclusive negotiation agreement
with CIM Group Inc., a Hollywood-based equity investment firm with
extensive mixed-use development experience, to develop the roughly
2.2 acres at the intersection of Compton and Central.
No concrete plans have been made because the city is still in the preliminary
stages of acquiring Ortiz’s land. The agency anticipates the
development will break ground in August 2009 and hopes to complete
the project by January 2011.
Ortiz’s approximately 4,000-square-foot parcel is only one of
12 parcels that will be developed by CIM Group. It represents just
4 percent of the overall project site, the rest of which is vacant.
Sefa-Boakye said the city has met the four requirements for using eminent
domain to acquire private property in California: that public interest
and necessity require the project; the project is planned or located
so that it will provide the greatest public good and the least private
injury; the parcel is necessary for the project; and the property owner
has been made an offer for a friendly acquisition at a fair price.
“Agency staff contends that this project is a critical component
to the redevelopment of the area and that acquiring the subject parcel
through condemnation will provide great public benefit,” a March
4 staff report authored by Sefa-Boakye reads.
The redevelopment plan for the CRA’s project area, which encompasses
much of the Hub City’s roughly 10 square miles, calls for the
elimination of blight, construction of housing and retail outlets and
funding of simple commercial development sites. The plan was first
adopted in 1991 and amended in November 2004.
The agency wages the project will boost city revenues through sales
and property taxes and create jobs.
And it asserts that Ortiz’s parcel, which is located on the corner,
is necessary in order for the agency to employ the concept of focusing
investments on a prominent corner to stimulate development in the surrounding
area.
Offers to purchase the site were made on Dec. 20 and Jan 25, according
to the staff report. Because Ortiz did not accept those offers, the
agency felt it was in the city’s best interest to move forward
with an involuntary acquisition.
“A voluntary acquisition is unlikely,” according to the
staff report.
Mayor Eric J. Perrodin said the city will try to take all alternate
routes besides using eminent domain.
“Hopefully we can come to a resolution, an amicable resolution,” said
Perrodin. “The last thing we want to do is condemn somebody’s
property. We would like to pay you market price for the property, good
will, and if you leave happy, we happy, everybody happy.”
But Ortiz is still worried and feels backed into a corner.
“It’s a forced sale. We have no other choice,” he
told The Bulletin last week. “We’re going to try to go
by the appraisal we have, but mainly we just want to stay here. I’m
a little guy. How can we compete with these corporations? They (the
city) signed
a big deal” with CIM Group.
“This is my American Dream, and I have to defend it,” said
Ortiz. “I’m
asking you (the city) not to take it away from me.”
California voters June 3 will decide on two ballot measures relative
to eminent domain. Proposition 98 would restrict the government’s
ability to seize private property and then turn around and resell it
for private development. Put on the ballot by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer
Association, the move would also phase out rent control ordinances
statewide. Proposition 99, backed by the California League of Cities,
would prohibit the government from using eminent domain to seize a
single-family home to help a private landowner.
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