Lowball Watch — Virginia

WAVY.com (which we presume is a radio or TV broadcast station) reports the Virginia Department of Transportation settled a condemnation lawsuit in Portsmouth for over seven times its original offer. VaDOT took a part of the owner’s land for a new bridge, and offered $125,607 for the required strip of land, but the offer did not include any severance damages to the remainder of the land which was severely impacted by the taking that bisected the property. But after two years of hanging tough VaDOT came around and settled for a total of $925,000.

The story does not indicate why VaDOT failed to offer anything for severance damages at the beginning of the matter. See http://wavy.com/2014/08/14/vdot-settles-in-eminent-domain-lawsuit/