When she bought her house close to the Crosstown/35W tangle seven years ago, Carol Lawrence knew the state might buy it to make way for its massive reconstruction project. Starting in 2007, her street became a muddy construction zone, trees toppled and neighbors’ houses were knocked into splinters. But Lawrence, a 52-year-old occupational therapist, learned to her disappointment that the state didn’t need her property. Her house on 1st Avenue South in Minneapolis was there to stay.

Then Lawrence heard how the state had abruptly decided to buy the home of her neighbor two doors down. Mary VanSlooten’s home had become an uninhabitable island in the shadow of a new 35W overpass, as Whistleblower reported in February. Lawrence contacted the Minnesota Department of Transportation and said, hey, what about me?

“I want them to buy my house too,” Lawrence told me. “I don’t think I could sell it with that overpass they’re building over our homes.”

Lawrence got a visit from a MnDOT staffer, from its new customer-friendly ombudsman’s office. But MnDOT doesn’t have any plans to buy her out. The state’s rules on eminent domain are about acquiring only property that’s needed for a government project. Someone will always end up the closest to the highway.

“We feel we don’t have a reason to take any of the property from her,” John Griffith, MnDOT’s west area manager, said. “We have to turn her down as far as a taking.”

That said, if Lawrence can prove her claims that the construction is cracking her house, she will be compensated for that damage, Griffith said.

Meanwhile, VanSlooten is expecting a formal offer from MnDOT by mid-April. A huge new pillar for the 35W overpass is rising in front of her house, and she feels for the neighbors she will leave behind.

“The poor guy next door, he talked to MnDOT and said, ‘How come you’re buying the neighbor’s house?’” VanSlooten told me. “They said, ‘We’re only taking hers because she’s under the bridge.’”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Complaint sagas, Neighborhood nuisances, Property problems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.