Blight
"We're going to prove that Carilion and the city got together in advance and decided to make that land available for Carilion. And then, to satisfy the agreement, adopted the redevelopment plan," said Joseph Waldo, B&B's lawyer. "The cart was clearly before the horse."
Originally slated to be a biomedical business park, the area has evolved into a home for Carilion physicians and the new Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute.
The latest estimated budget for the redevelopment project has grown to $26 million from an early estimate in 2000 of $14 million, according to the cooperation agreement between the city and the housing authority.
The housing authority's lawyer, Mark Loftis, said while Carilion and the city did talk about the South Jefferson area and the biomedical park early on, it didn't affect the housing authority's role.
The housing authority has argued that the purpose of the redevelopment plan is to remove blight and blighting influences.
"Certainly Carilion and the city had discussions and Carilion was interested in this area, but the housing authority is the one that engaged the consultants and made the blight determination," Loftis said. "While the city entered into agreements with Carilion, those don't bind the housing authority."
B&B is not considered a blighted property. Instead, it was surrounded by blight, and under the law at the time of the 2001 plan, the housing authority could include properties that were not blighted so long as the majority of the properties in redevelopment areas were blighted, Loftis said.
According to the redevelopment plan, 74.4 percent of the South Jefferson redevelopment area was either blighted or improperly developed.
This is an article, which is illustrative of the problems of ascertaining the propriety of takings for blight. By example, how does an ‘improperly developed’ property give rise to a cities right to acquire under blight? Is this a veiled attempt to take something not blighted? Is the private development a public use? Or the developer’s profits?
