Schools, drainage, stormwater and civic facilities, and the property they need to get built.
Localities acquire land for schools, fire and rescue stations, libraries, water and sewer plant, drainage improvements and stormwater management. These projects attract less attention than highways but they take property on the same constitutional terms.
Drainage and stormwater work in particular tends to take small awkward pieces of land, or easements across the low corner of a parcel, and owners often underestimate what that does to the rest.
Corners, strips and pieces rather than whole parcels.
Read moreRemaining propertyWhat the residue is worth afterwards.
Read moreEasementsDrainage and access rights.
Read moreResidential propertyHomes beside a new facility.
Read moreFair market valueHow the piece taken is measured.
Read moreGovernment authorityWhich bodies hold the power in Virginia.
Read moreSetbacks, septic fields and stormwater rules interact. Losing a corner can cost you a building envelope.
A drainage scheme that discharges onto the residue raises a damage question, and possibly more.
Localities sometimes seek easements where an outright purchase would be cleaner. The instrument changes what you keep.
Temporary easements should be defined in time and in what is restored afterwards.
Bodies exercising condemnation authority in Virginia do so under powers granted by the General Assembly. The public use requirement in Article I Section 11 applies to all of them, and the condemnor carries the burden of proving it.
Yes. It is a property right taken, and the effect on the land that remains is part of the compensation question.
Where a public body has damaged property without a condemnation proceeding, inverse condemnation is the route owners use. Raise it promptly and in writing.
Explore Virginia resources matched to your property, the project affecting it, and the stage you have reached.
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