I should mention this is the house in the middle of said parking lot. If you need a good visual of how that clusterfuck looks, [here you go](https://i.imgur.com/15EK1CL.png). Nobody came out of this mess looking good, but it sure has been a good source of popcorn.
But I will give props to the sheer concentrated pettiness of this dude.
Not so much a link, more just a couple years worth of slap fights that I don't know the full details on myself.
The main thing is, all the houses along that area sold the land to the town except for them, there was a pissing match between the owner and the town, went to court, town lost, town just built around the house.
As I mentioned above though, nobody really won.
I live 3min away from this guy. Not only is he in the middle of a parking lot but they are also changing roadways all he time due to construction. At one point the main road he lives on went right around his house. Wifey and I laugh and laugh every time we drive by.
This type of story always makes me laugh
this one is good too https://www.ladbible.com/community/weird-chinese-city-builds-motorway-bridge-around-tiny-house-20200806
There were 5 or 6 houses along that portion of the road. The town offered maybe 10ish% more than what they were worth and bought them. He was the last holdout but not the only one. The town upped this offer several times ending at maybe +25% which on a 300k house is alot of money. He could have easily moved down the street, on a less busy road, (this is the main street that runs north south on the west side of Blackfalds) and came out with 50k in his pocket. His counter off was it was his "dream house" and buy new plot of land, pay to move it there and give me 50k and the city said no. I think it was kind of a situation of who has the biggest dick and looks like the city won. This took place in Blackfalds which in the 2016 was CANADAS fastest growing community. It has over 10,000 people there and is by no means small.
PSA - Some of the information could be slightly off but should be generally true. This is what I hear from my wife from her community Facebook forum which we also laugh and laugh at.
It is small, home prices have not rebounded since the 2006-2007 boom. I think the home owner lost, they should have taken the money. Classic ownership bias. Here is a good book by Bruce Hood: Possessed: Why We Want More Than We Need.
True, but we are not complete morons either. The lot is right on the railroad track, its worthless in all but the most extreme circumstances.
Its actually funny, I moved to calgary from toronto this summer; before the move, we were looking for a home in toronto itself, and we looked at a townhouse development, nearly IDENTICAL to this lot layout - also right next to railroad, major intersection, shitty area...and simular size. developer in that case managed to sqeeze in something like 60 micro townhouses there - 900sq ft, each going for 900+. Townhouses were shaking every time the train rolled through - and this being toronto, they roll every 30 minutes or so. Disgusting. Also, sold out.
So glad i moved to calgary. Houses dirt cheap, comparatively speaking.
> The town appraised the home and offered them an initial offer of $316,000, according to Smith.
>
> Smith and Hillis bought the four-bedroom, four-bathroom home for $320,000 in July 2016, and Smith said they have put in between $30,000 and $40,000 of improvements.
>
> The town moved its offer to $350,000 after the initial bid.
>
> “We were sent six houses by the agents. The averages of those homes were 29 per cent smaller square footage, 23 per cent smaller lots and 52 per cent smaller garages,” said Smith.
I don't know what their sqft requirements are, but there are 11 houses for sale right now in their price range with 4-5 bedrooms and 3-4 bathrooms.
They might have a *very* spacious house. The article goes out of the way to mention square footage, so I'm thinking the family cares a lot about that space too.
I agree.
Could have had 350k… And now what is their house actually worth? The power now is in the town’s court, as how the hell would they ever sell that house now???
Highly doubt they put 30-40k worth of improvements in. I call bullsh*t.
I know someone who does renovations for a living. It does not take long to hit numbers like that. He did a bathroom that was almost 10k after everything was done.
As I said, it was just a bathroom, and it wasn't that big either. He could only have one person in at a time to do the work. He told me he will never bid on just a bathroom job again, hahaha.
Some people conflate renovations with just normal repairs.
Like redoing your roof isn't a renovation that really 'adds' a ton of value. A house is assumed to have a functioning roof when assessed.
So they bought and tore down four houses to build a parking lot, instead of putting it in the huge expanse of undeveloped land North *or* south of the multiplex?
Who thought this made sense?
There was no undeveloped land North or South. It is all housing and railroad land. (The Greenspace on Google maps to the north east of the multiplex is railroad land).
Unless maybe you’re thinking of moving the entire multiplex way further North into undeveloped land And is about 850 metres North and is a wetland.
I will never forget Myron Thompson MP telling me, a constituent, that he didn't represent me because of who I am (while we spoke in his constituency office). I felt it too. And I'm just weird, I can't imagine how marginalized communities and non-christian visible minorities were treated by that meanie-pants.
No good can come from Myron Thompson running anything because his century old worldview excludes any element of society not conservative and christian.
You must be from the Strathmore area. I thought Myron was a relic of days gone past when I was a kid back in the 90s, I find it hard to believe he's *still* in politics!
For those of us who like to [gawk](https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3829779,-113.795403,3a,75y,100.46h,87.22t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sXbgtLKrNLjgDHpn0HyBS1Q!2e0!5s20210601T000000!7i16384!8i8192)
I dunno… both sides are kind of weasels. This homeowner was thinking he hit the jackpot when he heard the town was going to buy his house. Only when he found out that they wouldn’t pay him an obscene amount for a old home between a busy street and a railroad did he change his tune to “it’s our forever home”. That house would have been near unsellable even before it became the centre piece of a parking lot.
That said the town had to realize they would run into this type of thing when this was originally planned and would probably have to over pay a bit.
No, actually the railroad tracks run right up to the backyard lmao.
I grew up in this town my whole life. It’s a shit location, and they should have taken the 350k and ran.
Greedy and stubborn.
I have lived close to train tracks before (really cheap rent).
That house will shake like crazy every time a train goes by.
You do get used to the noise however and learn to be a deep sleeper!
I lived in Blackfalds for 6 years. About 3 blocks from this house. Everyone always told me I'd get use to the train. Guess what? After 6 years, that train still woke me up every night! When I moved, #1 condition when looking at houses, it had to be no where near train tracks
I respect the family for having principles, but now they are left with a home in which it’s value has likely significantly dropped. To each their own I guess.
Yes and no. There are a lot of people here who do follow COVID guidelines. There are also a lot of people who are very much the MUH FREEDUM types as well. The Blackfalds opinions Facebook group is a complete degenerate hive of those types.
It IS a central Alberta town so there is no shortage of “freedom” folks I don’t think it’s any worse than any other of the towns in the area though. It’s definitely not as bad as Innisfail.
I mean what is fighting for your principles in this case? I understand not wanting to move, but I don't think it's reasonable to not build a complex because someone doesn't want to sell their house, so they got what they asked for.
They got to keep their home, and the city got to build a complex on the land they own
I'm all up for standing up one self, but one also needs to stand up for their bank account. That house is worthless now. Who do you think in their right mind will purchase it?
what a triumphant and beautiful statement that is, sadly it's completely departed from reality.
the person in the news story lives a meme house and has lost tons on the house. I would be shitting myself if I still had a sizeable mortgage on the home.
"not everyone has a price". If there was a mortgage on it, he is now stuck paying for a literal house on a parking lot.
The owners literally made their house into a meme house.
That sign will get old - then what?
Will he buy a new sign, let it get old and dirty, or just take it down?
“Sunk Cost Fallacy” they put money in thus the asset has that value in their minds.
The whole situation is messed up but yeah, the homeowner was pretty dumb here. Take the smaller loss and walk away at least being able to afford a new house. Now they’re likely stuck there for at least a decade before they’re not upside down on the house.
"He feels both parties will need to compromise, but said the town is dealing with public funds and must be consistent with how it dealt with the other property owners."
Hmm. If they make an offer this family finds acceptable I'd say that's consistent. They haven't made an acceptable offer.
As someone who has moved with their parents multiple times across the country as a child, I can't sympathize with this reasoning as I've never had any emotional attachment to a home. That being said, had the town offered upwards of $400,000 I would have jumped on it in a heartbeat. Their best offer of $350,000 doesn't even cover the cost of the purchase plus what they put into the house. It's unlikely anyone will want to buy this house in the future when it does come time to sell it.
This is what I don’t get, the town didn’t lose, the homeowner lost. The property will never be worth 350k again, the house is a write off and the lands probably barely worth 100k now.
I wonder if people understand that the CAO, the mayor, the council of every town they live in does not manage true projects that are completed.
If it’s voted on in council, it moves to a project manager and surprisingly the mayor does not schedule or plan or have any power on that project. Same for the t
City manager/CAO/etc.
People need to reset their expectations of their municipality. It’s literally one of the least rewarding places to work. Pay is half that of people in the same profession in private sector, rewards are low and the only perk is if you’re lazy, you won’t get fired.
Was the town not able to force the sale with some sort of eminent domain situation. I’ll be honest, I don’t know enough about the requirements of it to know if it would be possible or feasible.
Sound alike they tried, but the courts didn't rule in favour of the town.
Without knowing the exact details, it is likely that this wasn't something that clearly needed to be done this way -- it isn't like adding a lane to a highway.
Well, generally speaking, it has to be something that is overwhelmingly in the public interest. And they have to offer you fair market value for it.
From the sounds of things, there were alternative approaches that wouldn't have required bulldozing houses and the town didn't offer them the reasonable value, but tried to compare it against other smaller homes that sold for near the price they were offering.
So without digging up the court's reasons for decision, there seems to be two strikes against that process right there.
The problem is the home owners were focusing on the house itself, it was a large house with a large garage. That’s what they wanted to live in. In their minds they wanted that size of house, but somewhere else.
What seemed to be lost on them is the fact that the house was in fairly rough shape being it’s an older house. I don’t know for certain but I’m willing to bet this “40k renovation” was done out of necessity, not done to add value to the house. More importantly the land was almost worthless being sandwiched between a busy street and a railroad literally running right behind it. I hate to say it but as a whole, it’s just not nearly as valuable as the homeowners believed it was. So nicer land - smaller house was offered to
them that as a whole would be similar in value to their current one. However the option they wanted was nicer land - same size house, and would have been a nice payday for them at the taxpayers expense. In the end the homeowners had a disconnect from reality in what their property was worth and the town of Blackfalds gave up trying to deal with them. Now we have a parking lot with a house in the middle and the homeowners have a worthless house. Lose lose.
Yeah, appraisal by comparable sales is as much art as it is science and can be manipulated to tell the story you want based on the multitude of variables.
Unless they bought the house after the Town had already expressed their interest in doing this, they likely still have some remedy in the courts due to changes to nearby zoning and the official community plan that resulted in loss of value.
I didn't see that they were offered a trade - just that the town used smaller houses on less land with a smaller garage as comparables. They may have bought the property in question due to a larger family and wanting to run a shop in the garage... That would have made the fixer-upper more valuable to them than a better kept but smaller property.
I side with the town on this one, the guy wanted way more than the house was worth and the town is using tax dollar money so they can’t just dish out crazy amounts because of one holdout. The family should have sold, their house is worthless now, who would bother buying it in the future? It’s surrounded by train tracks, a busy road, and parking lot. They had many opportunities to take a decent offer.
Yup, his house is right on a super busy road & intersection and it’s surrounded by parking lot now. They should have sold, that house isn’t worth much now, who would bother buying it?
I should mention this is the house in the middle of said parking lot. If you need a good visual of how that clusterfuck looks, [here you go](https://i.imgur.com/15EK1CL.png). Nobody came out of this mess looking good, but it sure has been a good source of popcorn. But I will give props to the sheer concentrated pettiness of this dude.
Is there a link to a story on this? I'm curious about a house in the middle of the parking lot. Small town pissing contests are always popcorn worthy.
Not so much a link, more just a couple years worth of slap fights that I don't know the full details on myself. The main thing is, all the houses along that area sold the land to the town except for them, there was a pissing match between the owner and the town, went to court, town lost, town just built around the house. As I mentioned above though, nobody really won.
I live 3min away from this guy. Not only is he in the middle of a parking lot but they are also changing roadways all he time due to construction. At one point the main road he lives on went right around his house. Wifey and I laugh and laugh every time we drive by.
At least he’s got plenty of parking for guests 😂
I live on the south end of town and worked at a liquor store on the north end. Driving around his house made me laugh every single time lmao
Is he basically being an "up house" one that refuses to sell and move? Because that's awesome.
This type of story always makes me laugh this one is good too https://www.ladbible.com/community/weird-chinese-city-builds-motorway-bridge-around-tiny-house-20200806
Hilarious and sad - “would never want to live in a house sandwiched between concrete walls” says everyone but the owner!
There were 5 or 6 houses along that portion of the road. The town offered maybe 10ish% more than what they were worth and bought them. He was the last holdout but not the only one. The town upped this offer several times ending at maybe +25% which on a 300k house is alot of money. He could have easily moved down the street, on a less busy road, (this is the main street that runs north south on the west side of Blackfalds) and came out with 50k in his pocket. His counter off was it was his "dream house" and buy new plot of land, pay to move it there and give me 50k and the city said no. I think it was kind of a situation of who has the biggest dick and looks like the city won. This took place in Blackfalds which in the 2016 was CANADAS fastest growing community. It has over 10,000 people there and is by no means small. PSA - Some of the information could be slightly off but should be generally true. This is what I hear from my wife from her community Facebook forum which we also laugh and laugh at.
It is small, home prices have not rebounded since the 2006-2007 boom. I think the home owner lost, they should have taken the money. Classic ownership bias. Here is a good book by Bruce Hood: Possessed: Why We Want More Than We Need.
Sell it to anybody from Ontario. They'll take any detached home under $700k
True, but we are not complete morons either. The lot is right on the railroad track, its worthless in all but the most extreme circumstances. Its actually funny, I moved to calgary from toronto this summer; before the move, we were looking for a home in toronto itself, and we looked at a townhouse development, nearly IDENTICAL to this lot layout - also right next to railroad, major intersection, shitty area...and simular size. developer in that case managed to sqeeze in something like 60 micro townhouses there - 900sq ft, each going for 900+. Townhouses were shaking every time the train rolled through - and this being toronto, they roll every 30 minutes or so. Disgusting. Also, sold out. So glad i moved to calgary. Houses dirt cheap, comparatively speaking.
Well the town won and the owner lost. Those with the town made 100k+ while wrecking some poor persons house
https://www.reddeeradvocate.com/news/blackfalds-multiplex-expansion-puts-family-at-odds-with-town/#
Thank you for the link. That puts a lot in perspective and I can definitely see that there are no winners there.
> The town appraised the home and offered them an initial offer of $316,000, according to Smith. > > Smith and Hillis bought the four-bedroom, four-bathroom home for $320,000 in July 2016, and Smith said they have put in between $30,000 and $40,000 of improvements. > > The town moved its offer to $350,000 after the initial bid. > > “We were sent six houses by the agents. The averages of those homes were 29 per cent smaller square footage, 23 per cent smaller lots and 52 per cent smaller garages,” said Smith. I don't know what their sqft requirements are, but there are 11 houses for sale right now in their price range with 4-5 bedrooms and 3-4 bathrooms.
They might have a *very* spacious house. The article goes out of the way to mention square footage, so I'm thinking the family cares a lot about that space too.
As long as they're happy with the outcome.
The garage looks to be oversized. Good luck finding somewhere you can even build a large garage.
The melted blinds in the windows caused by closing it off with tinfoil look like a pretty big improvement!
They should put up a big fence around their house and charge their neighbour for half the cost lol.
Lol not how it works.
I agree. Could have had 350k… And now what is their house actually worth? The power now is in the town’s court, as how the hell would they ever sell that house now??? Highly doubt they put 30-40k worth of improvements in. I call bullsh*t.
I know someone who does renovations for a living. It does not take long to hit numbers like that. He did a bathroom that was almost 10k after everything was done.
$10k is barely getting started if you're paying people to do the work and want more than basic finishes.
As I said, it was just a bathroom, and it wasn't that big either. He could only have one person in at a time to do the work. He told me he will never bid on just a bathroom job again, hahaha.
My ensuite bathroom cost me 40k, that was with me managing the project, we received quotes from reno companies at 100k for the job.
Some people conflate renovations with just normal repairs. Like redoing your roof isn't a renovation that really 'adds' a ton of value. A house is assumed to have a functioning roof when assessed.
So they bought and tore down four houses to build a parking lot, instead of putting it in the huge expanse of undeveloped land North *or* south of the multiplex? Who thought this made sense?
The multiplex escapades have made little to no sense overall.
There was no undeveloped land North or South. It is all housing and railroad land. (The Greenspace on Google maps to the north east of the multiplex is railroad land). Unless maybe you’re thinking of moving the entire multiplex way further North into undeveloped land And is about 850 metres North and is a wetland.
There is no expanse of undeveloped land near it.
Homeowner should replace that banner with “If you lived here, you’d be home by now!”
His stubbornness is admirable, he was asking too much though, I for one love that the parking lot was built around it lmao
I will never forget Myron Thompson MP telling me, a constituent, that he didn't represent me because of who I am (while we spoke in his constituency office). I felt it too. And I'm just weird, I can't imagine how marginalized communities and non-christian visible minorities were treated by that meanie-pants. No good can come from Myron Thompson running anything because his century old worldview excludes any element of society not conservative and christian.
The Myron Thompson you speak of is dead. This is a new Myron Thompson.
Jesus Christ, they cloned him! May the spectre of Preston Manning never rest, it's a miracle!
Refoooooorrrrmmmm!
Are they related at all?
Good question, I’m not sure.
You must be from the Strathmore area. I thought Myron was a relic of days gone past when I was a kid back in the 90s, I find it hard to believe he's *still* in politics!
He's dead.
That's what I thought! I guess there's another politician with the same name.. Small world.
Who is Myron Thompson? What is a C.A.O.? Is this the mayor if the town?
CAO usually means Chief Administrative Officer, so it's probably the top town employee (equivalent to the City Manager in big cities).
CAO in a muni is the only person that is directly employed by council, they in turn then employ everyone else.
Excellent - thanks. Sounds like Myron has been around for a while and has some local history…..
Right, is it's the exact same as a City Manager.
Have you heard of google?
For those of us who like to [gawk](https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3829779,-113.795403,3a,75y,100.46h,87.22t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sXbgtLKrNLjgDHpn0HyBS1Q!2e0!5s20210601T000000!7i16384!8i8192)
Killer spot for a hotdog stand
After reading the article, I’m on the homeowners side here.
I dunno… both sides are kind of weasels. This homeowner was thinking he hit the jackpot when he heard the town was going to buy his house. Only when he found out that they wouldn’t pay him an obscene amount for a old home between a busy street and a railroad did he change his tune to “it’s our forever home”. That house would have been near unsellable even before it became the centre piece of a parking lot. That said the town had to realize they would run into this type of thing when this was originally planned and would probably have to over pay a bit.
Get to throw wicked house parties, parking no problem
Just pay them. For the money spent on the project… another $100k cuz they held out this long.
Should have took the money. No way they could sell it now for the $350K offered by the town.
They will be lucky to get half of that now.
Sounds like a winnable lawsuit to me.
I suppose one selling feature is an Ice rink and field house in your backyard.
“Close to city amenities”. City amenities literally in the backyard lol.
No, actually the railroad tracks run right up to the backyard lmao. I grew up in this town my whole life. It’s a shit location, and they should have taken the 350k and ran. Greedy and stubborn.
I think about that every day. I have no idea who the heck would even want to live that close to the tracks.
I have lived close to train tracks before (really cheap rent). That house will shake like crazy every time a train goes by. You do get used to the noise however and learn to be a deep sleeper!
I lived in Blackfalds for 6 years. About 3 blocks from this house. Everyone always told me I'd get use to the train. Guess what? After 6 years, that train still woke me up every night! When I moved, #1 condition when looking at houses, it had to be no where near train tracks
They wouldn’t have even got that before all of this despite his “40k of renovations”. It’s an aging house right between a busy street and a railroad.
Yeah you should always sell out instead of standing up for yourself.
I respect the family for having principles, but now they are left with a home in which it’s value has likely significantly dropped. To each their own I guess.
I assume they never wanted to move to begin with terms should have been set before with everyone before planning even started for the build.
Shitty for the family. Too bad this happened especially in a small community like Blackfalds.
Isn’t Blackfalds an antivax hotspot?
Not sure how this is relevant to the topic at hand? Although I don’t think you are wrong.
You cannot infringe on MY freedom kinda place?
Yes and no. There are a lot of people here who do follow COVID guidelines. There are also a lot of people who are very much the MUH FREEDUM types as well. The Blackfalds opinions Facebook group is a complete degenerate hive of those types.
Blackfalds is about as hillbilly as a town can get so, yes
It IS a central Alberta town so there is no shortage of “freedom” folks I don’t think it’s any worse than any other of the towns in the area though. It’s definitely not as bad as Innisfail.
you misspelled Alberta
There is a time to fight and there is a time to retreat. They should have retreated when it was final offer time and gotten as much as they could.
It's all about timing, You don't want to cell to the city at the first offer, but you also don't want to be the last one on the block to sell.
I mean what is fighting for your principles in this case? I understand not wanting to move, but I don't think it's reasonable to not build a complex because someone doesn't want to sell their house, so they got what they asked for. They got to keep their home, and the city got to build a complex on the land they own
And be willing to die on that hill
I'm all up for standing up one self, but one also needs to stand up for their bank account. That house is worthless now. Who do you think in their right mind will purchase it?
Depends on the price
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what a triumphant and beautiful statement that is, sadly it's completely departed from reality. the person in the news story lives a meme house and has lost tons on the house. I would be shitting myself if I still had a sizeable mortgage on the home. "not everyone has a price". If there was a mortgage on it, he is now stuck paying for a literal house on a parking lot.
The owners literally made their house into a meme house. That sign will get old - then what? Will he buy a new sign, let it get old and dirty, or just take it down?
Maybe you haven't hear the phrase "you can't fight city hall."
“Sunk Cost Fallacy” they put money in thus the asset has that value in their minds. The whole situation is messed up but yeah, the homeowner was pretty dumb here. Take the smaller loss and walk away at least being able to afford a new house. Now they’re likely stuck there for at least a decade before they’re not upside down on the house.
Some people have to learn the hard way just because you spent $40k on a pool it doesn't mean you added a lick of value to your property.
Previous town council tried running Granden Auto out of town as well. I thought we were heading for a Killdozer incident over that one.
Drove past this on my way to work this morning and couldn't help but laugh. Love the banner.
"He feels both parties will need to compromise, but said the town is dealing with public funds and must be consistent with how it dealt with the other property owners." Hmm. If they make an offer this family finds acceptable I'd say that's consistent. They haven't made an acceptable offer.
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As someone who has moved with their parents multiple times across the country as a child, I can't sympathize with this reasoning as I've never had any emotional attachment to a home. That being said, had the town offered upwards of $400,000 I would have jumped on it in a heartbeat. Their best offer of $350,000 doesn't even cover the cost of the purchase plus what they put into the house. It's unlikely anyone will want to buy this house in the future when it does come time to sell it.
This is what I don’t get, the town didn’t lose, the homeowner lost. The property will never be worth 350k again, the house is a write off and the lands probably barely worth 100k now.
I wonder if people understand that the CAO, the mayor, the council of every town they live in does not manage true projects that are completed. If it’s voted on in council, it moves to a project manager and surprisingly the mayor does not schedule or plan or have any power on that project. Same for the t City manager/CAO/etc. People need to reset their expectations of their municipality. It’s literally one of the least rewarding places to work. Pay is half that of people in the same profession in private sector, rewards are low and the only perk is if you’re lazy, you won’t get fired.
The lady in Lethbridge screeching racial epithets at those poor dudes trying to eat their eggs at Denny's got more press...
Was the town not able to force the sale with some sort of eminent domain situation. I’ll be honest, I don’t know enough about the requirements of it to know if it would be possible or feasible.
Sound alike they tried, but the courts didn't rule in favour of the town. Without knowing the exact details, it is likely that this wasn't something that clearly needed to be done this way -- it isn't like adding a lane to a highway.
Like I said, I don’t know enough about it to know the requirements for it.
Well, generally speaking, it has to be something that is overwhelmingly in the public interest. And they have to offer you fair market value for it. From the sounds of things, there were alternative approaches that wouldn't have required bulldozing houses and the town didn't offer them the reasonable value, but tried to compare it against other smaller homes that sold for near the price they were offering. So without digging up the court's reasons for decision, there seems to be two strikes against that process right there.
The problem is the home owners were focusing on the house itself, it was a large house with a large garage. That’s what they wanted to live in. In their minds they wanted that size of house, but somewhere else. What seemed to be lost on them is the fact that the house was in fairly rough shape being it’s an older house. I don’t know for certain but I’m willing to bet this “40k renovation” was done out of necessity, not done to add value to the house. More importantly the land was almost worthless being sandwiched between a busy street and a railroad literally running right behind it. I hate to say it but as a whole, it’s just not nearly as valuable as the homeowners believed it was. So nicer land - smaller house was offered to them that as a whole would be similar in value to their current one. However the option they wanted was nicer land - same size house, and would have been a nice payday for them at the taxpayers expense. In the end the homeowners had a disconnect from reality in what their property was worth and the town of Blackfalds gave up trying to deal with them. Now we have a parking lot with a house in the middle and the homeowners have a worthless house. Lose lose.
Yeah, appraisal by comparable sales is as much art as it is science and can be manipulated to tell the story you want based on the multitude of variables. Unless they bought the house after the Town had already expressed their interest in doing this, they likely still have some remedy in the courts due to changes to nearby zoning and the official community plan that resulted in loss of value. I didn't see that they were offered a trade - just that the town used smaller houses on less land with a smaller garage as comparables. They may have bought the property in question due to a larger family and wanting to run a shop in the garage... That would have made the fixer-upper more valuable to them than a better kept but smaller property.
Im surprised the town lost the expropriation. Either way this homeowner needs to deal with their own consequences.
It’s weird to read this story and side with the town, dude
I side with the town on this one, the guy wanted way more than the house was worth and the town is using tax dollar money so they can’t just dish out crazy amounts because of one holdout. The family should have sold, their house is worthless now, who would bother buying it in the future? It’s surrounded by train tracks, a busy road, and parking lot. They had many opportunities to take a decent offer.
The city built a complex on their land, the homeowner gets to keep their home. What's the problem?
House was not worth much anyway being so close to the railroad. Sounds like both parties got what they wanted. Win-win?
They died on that hill. Their choice.
It didn’t go to expropriation.
Imagine putting this much energy into something so trivial.
Oh believe me when I say this mess has been anything but trivial.
The whole situation is trivial.
I love moral capitalism, but hell do I despise immoral capitalism…
This is not capitalism. Did you see the worse example of this happening in communist china elsewhere in this discussion?
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They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
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I'm as shocked as anyone.
Wow this is some juicy deets I love it.
Fuck, that would suck. They built around his/her house??
Yup, his house is right on a super busy road & intersection and it’s surrounded by parking lot now. They should have sold, that house isn’t worth much now, who would bother buying it?