2013

PKO Ventures, LLC v. Norfolk Redevelopment & Hous. Auth.

Supreme Court of Virginia

286 Va. 174, 747 S.E.2d 826

In 1998, Norfolk City Council approved a redevelopment project to address blighted areas. Following this approval, two decisions by the Norfolk City Circuit Court, in 1999 and 2009, rejected challenges to the Housing Authority’s condemnation of several properties, which the court found to be blighted under Va. Code § 36-49. In April, 2010, the Housing Authority filed a petition to condemn a ten-unit apartment house in the blighted area. Both sides stipulated that the parcel itself was not blighted. In response to the landowner’s (PKO) objection to the petition, the Housing Authority asserted stare decicis precluded PKO from challenging the acquisition by eminent domain. PKO argued that Va. Code § 1-219.1 precluded acquisition of the unblighted property after July 1, 2010, and that stare decicis did not apply as PKO’s objections and defenses were different. Trial court overruled PKO’s objections and defenses, and allowed the Housing Authority to acquire the property by eminent domain. Supreme Court reversed, stating that in the construction of statutes conferring the power of eminent domain, every reasonable doubt is to be resolved adversely to that right. Section 1-219.1 makes it clear that the Housing Authority cannot condemn property in a blighted redevelopment area when the property itself is not blighted. Further, in construing paragraph three of Chapter 882, the Court found that the actual acquisition of unblighted property in a designated blighted area must take place before the July 1, 2010, deadline. The filing of the petition was insufficient to avoid the bar of § 1-219.1. The Housing Authority’s argument that Va. Code § 1-239 prohibits the effect of the statute is incorrect, as the Authority did not hold any rights to the property when § 1-219.1 took effect.

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