Developer Sues over Eminent Domain Taking: Superior Court Case Seeks Higher Price for Property on Brookline Street
“The former property owner and developer of the property at the corner of Brookline and Empire streets, where the city is planning to build the New Marshall Middle School, has filed suit in Superior Court over the amount of money he was paid for the land.
Cricket Realty Holdings, which had held permits to build a 156-unit apartment building on the site that sits adjacent to the commuter rail train tracks, has filed a suit claiming that the land is worth $6.2 million, rather than the $1.3 million the city paid for it, in an eminent domain taking earlier this year.
“The plaintiff was offered a sum of money by the defendant (city of Lynn) as purported compensation for the taking of their property that is inadequate and does not reflect the fair market value of the property taken by the defendant,” states the complaint by Cricket Realty attorneys.
The suit attempts to make its case for the city’s undervaluing of the property by providing comparable property sales in other communities. However, according to city attorney James LaManna of the Lynn City Solicitor’s office, the suit will likely come down to which value of the property is proved to a jury, and the city will attempt to make its case that the city’s offer was fair given the circumstances that surround that site and the use of actual comparable property sales that Lynn attorneys and appraisers will provide to the court.”
Lynn Journal, 13 August 2013.