In the past year, Prince William County and I have negotiated, negotiated, and re-negotiated the eminent domain (or certificate of taking) on my property for the purpose of proposed road work
This process has literally taken hours, and hours, and hours of my time. So MUCH time.
The county has been evasive. I remember one such time when I finally told the party on the other line, "I WANT TO KNOW.....who IS the MAN behind the curtain?????" Of course, I was attempting to find out who was the final decision maker who was hiding behind the front line people who were trying to push me around. Really, their method of pushing me around was "afflicting" me until I just gave up.
It's a year later now, I have been through so much with Prince William County and the road work by now. One thing I will say, when you think you have asked the county for a "reasonable" amount of money for the "impact" (that's a word the conunty likes to use; it means damage) on your property, you SHOULD KNOW...YOU NEED TO KNOW that there will be a true and serious "impact" on you too. I wish I had known. I wish I had realized. But when you think you've negotiated a fair and reasonable number (dollars for compensation), then you SHOULD ask for more. Because you have no IDEA what you are about to go through.
I wish I had posted all along the experiences I have had with the county and all they have put me through, so that I might help one person avoid a mis-communication and understand how this whole process works. But since I haven't.....suffice it to say that these are the experiences which have resulted from the road work next to my home in Haymarket, VA.
XBOY, have we been through it. If you think you might have to go through an eminent domain procedure, please refer to what I have been through and let me help you.
Here are the issues I am still dealing with:
Here are some of the things that have happened:
- These people put stadium-like lights in my yard and worked all night long for two or three nights in a row.
- They bull dozed and buried my plants and damaged or destroyed thousands of dollars worth of stuff (and I have the before and after pictures to prove it!).
- They left debris all over the place, including in my yard. My neighbor has started picking up stuff down on her end.
- They rammed into my well with heavy equipment and broke that…. which left me without water.
- What was my clean water now has sediment in it.
- I spent an entire day cleaning out the Jacuzzi, and refilling it AND it filled back up with dirty water…verified by the Well expert (picture attached). Now I have to take another full day and empty that out and REFILL it…but cannot until the issue of the sediment is resolved. Gross misuse of my time.
- They came through here the other day with a huge machine and BLASTED Hay and debris at the bare areas (which are 20 feet from my house…if that far) and just BLASTED this place with hay and debris. It was all over the cars, the driveways, in the pool…you name it. (picture attached…but that doesn’t do it justice. This shows you better…
- They disturbed the peace around here from 6-7 in the morning, every morning, there was construction going on around here for 2-3 months. Sometimes until 4-5pm, sometimes all night long.
- That meant there was NO PRIVACY at all…there were always a bunch of men somewhere right outside my door all the time!!!! Life couldn’t possibly continue around here as it was before. If you like to work out in the yard, you didn’t feel “comfortable” doing so. If you like to get in the pool, well, no so much with all those men around.
- They filled up ½ of the ditch line beside my house (which they repeated said they would not) and killed all of the thousands of dollars worth of plants in there!!!!
- They didn’t fill up the other ½ of the ditch line…but left it there for me to maintain.
- They graded the county’s land TOWARD my house…and every single person who has looked at that agrees that there’s going to be a big problem out there when we get a big rain.
- They have not removed the old fencing they took down. (picture attached)
- They have not replaced the fence—which they were supposed to do.
- AND the list goes on!!!!
