In an effort to keep the Highway 25 bypass project on schedule
and avoid years of lawsuits, the Council of San Benito County
Governments voted Thursday to negotiate fair purchase prices with
property owners who feel they were low-balled for their properties
along the bypass route.
Hollister – In an effort to keep the Highway 25 bypass project on schedule and avoid years of lawsuits, the Council of San Benito County Governments voted Thursday to negotiate fair purchase prices with property owners who feel they were low-balled for their properties along the bypass route.
COG hopes the bypass, in the works since 1959, would divert cross-town traffic off of San Benito Street in downtown Hollister by building a bypass road off Sunnyslope Road and extending Park Street to connect with the bypass. This would take control of San Benito Street away from CalTrans and give it to the city, allowing Hollister to make the thoroughfare a more pedestrian-friendly road, drawing shoppers and revitalizing downtown Hollister.
COG staff’s most recent estimate was that construction of the project would begin in June and take around 15-18 months to complete.
“We can’t change anything, because it would mean it would delay the whole project another five or six years,” said COG Director Robert Scattini Friday. “It’s the 11th and a half hour. The county has put a lot of time and money into figuring out that this is the best route. I want to be fair to the land owners, the property owners and COG, but it’s to the point where we need to go ahead with this. I can’t see any other solution. The people voted in Measure A years ago, and they’re ready for this to happen.”
COG had voted to move ahead with the bypass project in January despite threats from property owners’ lawyers that low-ball estimates of their property values could cost the county millions in lawsuits. The COG directors agreed at their Jan. 29 meeting that taking land from about a dozen properties was necessary to the $27 million project, but that COG staff would continue to meet with property owners to negotiate purchase offers. They’re hoping this way they can avoid tying the project up in court for years at a county cost of millions of dollars.
One woman whose property was deemed necessary for the project agreed to a price $12,000 over the county’s original offer, according to Scattini, but COG Chair Pauline Valdivia appointed a sub committee to continue negotiations with two of the most high-profile property owners involved.
“We’re not in the business of taking away people’s property without proper compensation,” said alternate Director Jaime De La Cruz after Thursday’s COG meeting. “But this project is very important to the community in terms of economic stability. I just want to make sure we can step back a little and work with them.”
Directors Scattini and Anthony Botelho will be meeting and discussing property values with COG staff and property owner Mark Gibson, who along with his attorney and an engineer have put together an alternate plan that would detour the bypass around Gibson’s project.
“We’re going to be looking at that (Gibson’s plan) again,” Valdivia said. “We want to accommodate the property owners as much as possible.”
Still, Valdivia noted, the bypass project has been in the plans for years and none of the COG directors want to see it delayed any longer than it has to be.
“This has been in the plans since the ’80s, and it has to move on. That’s part of progress,” Valdivia said.
COG Director Anthony Botelho agreed.
“To say ‘Oh, all of a sudden we’re going to deny this (taking a property),’ that throws a monkey wrench in the whole 25 bypass,” he said.
Jessica Quandt covers politics for the Free Lance. Reach her at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or at
jq*****@fr***********.com
.
