City Wanted a Piece of My Lot

This happend when I had the property of 九十六街的故事

One day, a lady in the city hall knocked on my door. She introduced herself and told me which department she works in the city hall. The city needs to expand the road on 96 avenue, four feet to be exact, so that a divider could be put in the middle of the road. She left her card with me, and said she would mail me the related documents.

She told me the city has started talking to all the owners on this section of the road, and the going sale price of the land is xx dollars per square foot.

Later one I got phone calls from other owners. Some told me to hold on, not agreeing to whatever price the city offers, because collectively we can get better price.

I was not sure about the bylaw. I remember when I purchased properties, it says the land altimately belongs to the Queen, and if the government wants to use it, it can get it, and just paying fair market value.

The lady called several times. I told her the city needs to pay more, she said as long as I could find examples where people sold land for more, the city is open for dialogue.

The old fence needed to be put down, the city offered to put in brand new fence once the work is done, and they would put temporary fence while the word was done.

To do the work, each lot needs to be cut four feet short. There is a big problem with my lot: there was a duplex on the lot, a duplex lot needs to be 10,000 sqare feet at least, and my lot is 125X80, with 80 along the street. If city cuts off four feet, then the lot is not big enough to be a duplex lot. The current structure could be grandfathered, but what about if it were burned down, could it be re-built?

The answer was no. So I offered the property to the city. It is simple: if you wanted to cut a piece off it, you had to buy it.

The city said no, they did not want to own it. Well, I could not let them cut it, because it was not fair to me.

I did not want to be a 钉子户 to the city. I did not live there anyway, it does not affect my quality of life. Further more, the ladty told me said after the improvement, property value should increase. Well, it might be, who knew.

I thought it really hard, and came up with an idea, that the city hall agreed upon.

Here was my solution: I agreed that the city could cut and use the piece of the land, but the city does not own the land, so thoretically my lot was still the original size. The city still had to pay for the usage.

At the end of it, the city paid 90% of what they should pay if they bought the land outright, I got to keep the duplex lot status. Of the 320 sqare feet, I got paid a bit over ten thousand dollars.