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Doesn't the State offer market value?

Get real. The fair market value was destroyed by the imminence of the highway. State offers under such circumstances are tantamount to robbery.

No, The widening of the road did not destroy the market value of these houses. The traffic on the road destroyed the value of these houses. And this happened long before the road widening began. As I said in #51, When Bixby bought the property in '94, the traffic was alredy a severe problem. I'm sure he got a good price on it.

Let me suggest that most of these houses are rent houses, Few are owner occupied and Bixby could well have been the only ownner occupying. For the owner-landlords the money they recieved on this project was a windfall since the widening has no affect on the rental value and will hasten the commercial value.

And this isn't new. My father had just started his own auto repair business in the late 1960s when the Commonwealth of Virginia came to him, told him they were putting a four-lane bypass highway through the property, gave him an offer of about 15 cents on the dollar, and told him to take it or get his property condemned and get nothing for it. He didn't have the money for a lawyer, so he took the money and rebuilt the business a few miles away, and ran it successfully for over twenty years.

But to his dying day eight years ago, he was bitter. Very bitter. When we'd drive down that highway, I'd see him glance over to where his shop used to be, just off the right shoulder of the southbound lanes. He never got over it, and he never trusted a word anybody at the Virginia DOT ever told him again.

That having been said, there's no way that something like that would justify ambushing and killing two LEOs. I can't believe anybody's even trying to. There are people here that would actually say "Well, the cops deserved to get blown away" over a freaking construction easement?

}:-)4