Judge: Shelton property taken by city worth $1M

SHELTON — A superior court judge has determined the city must pay $1 million for a Blacks Hill Road property it had taken last year through eminent domain.

The city sought for several weeks early last year to purchase 55 Blacks Hill Road — an essential piece needed for completion of the Constitution Boulevard extension — but to no avail, as both sides remained far apart on a sale price.

Mayor Mark Lauretti never divulged the city’s offer at the time. Attorney

Patricia Sullivan, representing the property owners, Sharon Churma and Barbara Majeski, stated in a March 2023 letter to city corporation counsel Fran Teodosio that the land owners would agree to sell their property for $1.7 million.

Ultimately, the city condemned the land on July 22, 2023, setting aside $385,000 for the purchase of the 5.1-acre property, according to the court documents. The owners contested the price, and the final determination was left to a judge who, in a ruling released April 1, found the land’s fair market value is $1,011,000.

Attempts to reach Lauretti and Sullivan were unsuccessful.

In his ruling, Judge Matthew Budzik used the sale of the neighboring property at 56 Blacks Hill Road as a guide.

The Board of Aldermen, at a meeting in February 2022, approved the city’s purchase of 56 Blacks Hill Road for $590,000, with the cost being covered through use of American Rescue Plan funds. The city paid $337,000 per acre for the 1.75-acre site.

Budzik determined that three acres of 55 Blacks Hill Road was “necessary” for the road construction, therefore he found that the city should pay $337,000 per acre, which brings the sale total to $1,011,000. He found the remaining acreage did not “contribute meaningfully to the heightened value” of the property.

During the hearing process, Churma and Majeski proposed a sale price of $1,150,000, while the city countered at $610,000. Both sides presented appraisals with details supporting their stance on the fair market value of the land.

The haggling over the price started in early 2023.

In a letter dated March 11, 2023, to the city corporation counsel Fran Teodosio, Sullivan, wrote that the city first offered to purchase the land for $215,000, to which she stated the owners were “insulted.”

The next offer, after an updated valuation of the land, was $345,000, Sullivan wrote.

Sullivan, in her letter, said the 56 Blacks Hill Road property is “three small parcels which in total amount to approximately a third of the acreage of the 55 Blacks Hill Road property. The 56 Blacks Hill Road parcels have far less development potential than the 55 Blacks Hill Road parcel.”

Sullivan said a “well-respected” real estate professional had estimated the property’s value at “well in excess of $1 million.”

“Simple math would suggest that a tripling of the price paid for 56 Blacks Hill Road would be appropriate for the purchase of 55 Blacks Hill Road,” she wrote.

Lauretti has said he first contacted the owners of 55 Blacks Hill Road — which the mayor says has been vacant for several years — before the onset of the pandemic. He said the city made an offer to the owners, which was rejected.

Sullivan said the property, on which sits one house, has been in her clients’ family since the 1940s.