The road of progress leads, for better or worse, right through Joe Beaudoin’s fields in east Vancouver.
And through the Nuttman family’s land. And the property of Mountain View Place Apartments.
The stretch of Northeast 18th Street near Northeast 112th Avenue is currently an undeveloped two-lane country road — a role that suited it fine until the area was annexed into the city and development boomed.
Now 25,000 cars pass through the intersection of 112th and 18th every day; that figure is expected to reach 50,000 by 2029.
The intersection is “failing,” city planners say, and is a safety and traffic hazard.
And to start the fix, the city plans to widen 18th Street to five lanes between 112th Avenue to just east of Four Seasons Lane, starting next summer.
It’s a task that has Vancouver at odds with three property owners who have yet to settle on a price at which they’ll sell their land.
On Monday, the city council will consider giving staff the authority to condemn the properties through eminent domain if necessary. The step gives the option to go through the court system, though property owners and the city both say they hope it doesn’t come to that.
“It doesn’t mean we’re going to go through the eminent domain process,” Vancouver senior engineer Chris Malone said. “We’ll definitely try to avoid it if we can.”
The city wants the option to move ahead with the first $10.5 million phase of the project on a short timeline.
A second phase, to widen the road as far as 138th Avenue, is on hold indefinitely; the city lacks money to pay for it.
The property owners say they want to be paid fairly for their land.
“Negotiations are failing,” said Vancouver attorney Mark Erikson, who represents the owners of Mountain View Place Apartments on 112th. “The token offer which the city has made, it doesn’t represent anything near what my clients would accept.”
Erikson declined to say how much the city offered for the 1,800 square feet of land it needs, which includes a driveway that would need to be demolished and regraded after the city builds onto the right of way.
“We’re pretty far apart right now,” Erikson said.
The amount of property sought by the city is less than 1 percent of the property he farms, but Beaudoin is convinced that when 18th Street is widened all the way from 112th to 138th Avenue, Joe’s Place Farms will be put out of business.
“Do we really need a five-lane road on 18th Street?” he said. “It’s to relieve traffic from Mill Plain, but they’re destroying the neighborhood.”
Beaudoin has about 85 acres in a patchwork of fields south of 18th Street and east of 112th Avenue, and the city is seeking about 0.37 of an acre. He owns a portion of that land, and leases or has agriculture easements for the rest.
His farm, one of the last within city limits, relies on U-Pick and other operations that use the land the city wants to build its road on, he said.
The city’s offered him $34,300 for 9,350 square feet needed during the first phase of the project, $1,398 for 6,078 square feet of agricultural easement and $7,714 for the loss of 235 peach trees on that property.
“The offers they have made me so far wouldn’t even pay for an attorney,” Beaudoin said.
The third property owners, the Nuttman family, were offered $155,000 for their land, and roughly $75,000 for a three-story house on it, their attorney, Ron Greenen, said.
The family has owned the property for years, and “they have no interest in even selling it. But they understand, given the circumstances, they won’t be able to fight the eminent domain,” he said. “They just need to figure out some sort of reasonable compensation.”
The offers to Beaudoin and the Nuttmans will change, Malone said. Beaudoin leases the land at the intersection of 112th and 18th from the Nuttmans, so the offer to him may increase, and the offer to the Nuttmans may go down, Malone said.
Vancouver has already reached agreements with three other property owners. Several more have also worked out deals to let the city have access to their property during construction.
The city’s total budget for planning and buying all of the land for the first phase of the project is $1.5 million, Malone said.
Malone said part of the problem lies in the fact that the three property owners have not offered the city counter-proposals.
The owners, however, say that the process has been so rushed that they have not been given adequate time to pull together appraisals.
“How do you put a value on a peach tree?” Beaudoin asked.
He’s trying, however, by compiling the cost of his water rights, the work put into the land and his sales records for the last four years.
The 69-year-old farmer called the potential condemnation “a scare tactic.”
Erikson, the lawyer for Mountain View Place LLC, said most condemnation cases settle before reaching trial. Local governments have an interest in settling, he said, because if the jury awards a sum at trial that is 10 percent or more higher than a city’s final offer, the government is also responsible to pay for all the attorney fees and costs.
“It depends on what city is willing to do,” Erikson said.
Andrea Damewood: 360-735-4542 or andrea.damewood@columbian.com.
