Tug of War Over Land (complete article from source)
Source: WETM.com, by Camille Williams
March 05, 2008
Chemung
Chemung County Officials are trying to sweeten a deal to convince a local family to sell part of their farm.
The farm land's needed so the county can bring hundreds of new jobs to the area.
But no matter how sweet the deal is a family spokesman says they're not going to sell it without a fight.
A potato farm is in the middle of a tug of war.
An unnamed Fortune 100 Company has interest in building a distribution center here on White Wagon Rd. in Chemung, bringing in about 700 jobs.
The county already owns 30 acres.
Jeffrey Johnson of Allentown, Pennsylvania and his family own the other 90 acres.
“Really it's not for sale I keep telling everybody.”-said Jeffrey Johnson Co-Owner
“I would like to avoid and I've said this publicly, eminent domain. I would love to reach an agreement with the Johnson's.”-said County Executive Tom Santulli
Originally, Santulli said the family wanted 8 times what the land's worth.
County Officials say that's too much.
Now the county is trying to sweeten the deal to come to an agreement by Monday.
“$28,000 an acre, use of an adjoining 30 acres, if they give us an extending option and this deal doesn't go through, they could farm awaiting another project.”-said County Executive Tom Santulli
If no agreement reached, county says it might have no other choice than to try and take the land through eminent domain.
That would force the Johnson's to sell their land to the county’s industrial development agency at a price set by a judge.
“He comes and tells us they need it and they'll do whatever they have to, that's when they came up with eminent domain. I took it as a threat more than anything.”- said Jeffrey Johnson Co-Owner
The Johnson's Family says they just want to farm and not sell their land.
They hope they can convince the county to look somewhere else.
“Hopefully this project is going to work for us ,for them, they can sell that portion of the land and continue to farm the other land make money and we can bring 700 jobs to our community.”-said County Executive Tom Santulli
Santulli says the Johnson family can expect a formal proposal by the end of Friday.
If they refuse it, then the County will go ahead with a public hearing for eminent domain on Tuesday.
Click here for complete article from WETM.com
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