Olivehurst landowner sues over low property valuation

Another property owner contends his Olivehurst land is worth twice what a public agency says is its value — and a trial is set for Tuesday in Yuba County Superior Court in the eminent domain case.

Danna Investment Co. disputes the appraisal by the Yuba County-based Three Rivers Levee Improvement Authority that concludes 56 acres at Feather River Boulevard and Murphy Road are worth $725,900.

The value of the land is actually $1.6 million, Danna Investment contends — a figure that an attorney for Three Rivers terms "astounding."

That's the same description attorney Scott McElhern used in a separate case involving 22 acres of peach and prune orchards off Feather River Boulevard between Broadway and Plumas roads.

Those landowners, in another eminent domain case, put the property's value at about twice the $333,000 of the levee authority's appraisal.

McElhern, in a court filing Wednesday in the Danna Investment case set to go to trial next week, notes the June 2008 date for the appraisal of the property near Murphy Road.

"The market for residential investment property in Yuba County was nonexistent," McElhern said of real estate conditions more than a year ago.

McElhern said the $l.6 million appraisal for Danna Investment concludes that "some hypothetical investor would have paid a 200 percent premium above the agricultural value of the property in June 2008 despite the state of the real estate market."

But Attorney Gary Livaich, representing Danna Investment, said in court Thursday during a hearing on pretrial motions in the case that the appraiser acknowledged a slower real estate market.

"It's clear," Livaich added, that "the market has not disappeared."

Sometimes buyers take a chance and hold land for investment, he said of the $1.6 million appraisal.

The property was taken by eminent domain as part of a project to replace a weak levee next to the river channel and build a more than 5-mile-long modern levee.

While Danna Investment and the levee authority disagree over the property's value, court filings note that the need for the improvements is not in dispute.

Paul Brunner, executive director of the levee improvement authority, said Thursday that the public agency has to offer a fair price for property while also safeguarding tax funds.

"The economic times we have do have an impact on the price of lands," Brunner said. "We think it has more of an impact than the property owner does."

Last December a Yuba County jury concluded 99 acres of peach and walnut orchards in Olivehurst were worth $1 million more than the levee authority paid when acquiring the land by eminent domain for Feather River levee work.