Project Types
How NCDOT road widening, interchange and alignment work reaches private property, and where the value goes.
Highway work is the most common source of condemnation in North Carolina. The Department of Transportation acquires right of way for widening, new interchanges, realignments and safety improvements, and it does so under its own statutory scheme in Chapter 136 Article 9 rather than under Chapter 40A.
On most parcels the acquisition is a strip along the frontage rather than the whole property. The interesting question is therefore not what the strip is worth, but what the project does to everything behind it.
Title passes early in highway cases. Section 136-103 requires the Department to file a complaint and a declaration of taking with a deposit of estimated compensation. Section 136-104 then vests title and the right of possession. Construction can begin while the amount is still being argued.
The short answer
A highway take is usually partial. Section 136-112 measures damages on a partial taking by the difference between the value of the entire tract before the taking and its value afterwards, which is where access and frontage effects belong.
Relocated driveways, closed crossovers and changed turning movements.
Read moreA strip acquired with the balance of the parcel remaining.
Read moreWhat the residue is worth once the road is built.
In preparationHow the strip itself is measured.
Read moreFrontage, parking and circulation on trading sites.
Read moreThe full picture of what is owed.
Read moreThe alignment is settled and right of way plans drawn. In some corridors a Map Act map was recorded years before.
Your property appears with the proposed take shown against it.
The Department obtains a valuation of the land and the effect on the remainder.
A written figure is presented with the valuation behind it.
Section 136-103, if no agreement is reached.
Section 136-104, on filing.
Sections 136-106 and 136-107. The time for filing is strict.
Section 136-108 lets the judge decide title and area questions first.
Section 136-109 for appointment, section 136-112 for the measure, section 136-113 for interest.
Find your driveway on the plan sheet. A relocated or narrowed entrance is a compensable change, not a detail.
A raised median removing left turns can transform a retail site without taking an extra square foot.
Land left above or below the finished road surface may be far less usable.
If so, the restriction it imposed has its own compensation history, and its own strict deadline for raising a claim.
Yes. Section 136-103 requires the complaint, declaration of taking and deposit, and section 136-104 vests title and the right of possession on filing. The final figure is determined afterwards.
Section 136-112 sets the measure. For a partial taking it works on the difference between the fair market value of the entire tract immediately before the taking and its value afterwards. For a total taking it is the fair market value of the property.
It allowed the Department to record maps designating future roadway corridors, which restricted development on the affected land. In Kirby v. NCDOT, decided in June 2016, the Supreme Court of North Carolina held this amounted to a taking requiring compensation.
Section 136-113 treats interest as part of just compensation in Department cases.
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