Judge orders city to pay 'heritage value' in Bloomfield Road condemnation case

A judge has ordered the city of Cape Girardeau to pay an additional $45,000 in a condemnation case to the owners of the historic Elmwood property along Bloomfield Road.

Judge Rob Fulton ruled Friday the city, under state law, must pay $45,000 in “heritage value” in addition to the $90,000 the city previously agreed to pay to settle the land condemnation case.

Deputy city manager Molly Hood said Monday city officials have not decided whether to appeal the ruling.

Hood said the issue will be discussed with the city council.

“There is definitely a risk involved with an appeal,” she said.

People on the History Mystery Tour tour Elmwood Manor on April 22 in Cape Girardeau. The house dates back to 1808.Southeast Missourian file

There would be added legal costs if the city appeals, Hood said.

But Elmwood Farms’ attorney, James F. Waltz of Cape Girardeau, said the city was given an option in the earlier settlement agreement to pay an additional $22,500 to settle all the claims. The city chose to let the court decide the “heritage value” issue, he said.

Waltz welcomed the ruling.

He said the state law is designed to “strengthen landowners’ rights, not diminish them.”

City officials had argued property owners Patrick and Cheryl Evans were not entitled to “heritage value.”

Under state law, a court must approve a 50-percent increase in the condemnation payment if it is found the land had “heritage value.”

To qualify, the property must have been owned within the same family for more than 50 years, and the condemnation must affect the use of the property.

Both sides agreed the Spanish-land-grant property was settled by a Cape Girardeau pioneer family and has been in the same family for more than 200 years.

But the city contended the taking of land for reconstruction and widening of Bloomfield Road and the addition of a recreation trail did not prevent Elmwood Farms from using the property “in substantially the same manner” as before the taking.

In that case, the property owners would not be entitled to “heritage value,” the city argued.

The judge, however, sided with the property owners.

In his ruling, Fulton wrote the 1.95 acres taken by the city for the transportation project prevents the Evans family from using the land as it once did.

Fulton said “heritage value” also is justified because the acreage amounts to 11.4 percent of a 17-acre tract of Elmwood property and “more importantly the taking accounts for 26.2 percent of the more usable, non-flood zone land area.”

Fulton said a number of other factors also support heritage value in this case. They include:

• Historic Elmwood gate now stands with the paved part of the recreational trail on road right-of-way in front of it with the trail easement behind it.
• Sixteen mature trees at the entrance to Elmwood were removed along with a historic spring.
• Future trail use will increase trespassing and result in “loss of privacy and quiet enjoyment.”
• Bloomfield Road has been realigned, putting the roadway closer to the Elmwood property.
• Grade of the road “has been significantly raised.”
• Entrance into the Elmwood estate has been narrowed from 65 feet to 50 feet.

“The court finds and uncontroverted evidence establishes that the ‘highest and best use’ of Elmwood is as historic property,” Fulton wrote.

The judge wrote Elmwood Farms “is entitled to the valuation which yields the highest compensation.”

mbliss@semissourian.com

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