City needs sliver of land to continue Wynnton project

Columbus Council will be asked this evening to approve a resolution allowing the city to seize a sliver of land from a private owner to go forward with the Wynnton Road Master Plan.

The land, which is about 830 square feet along Wynnton Road in front of the Lemongrass Thai and Sushi restaurant near the intersection with Lawyers Lane, is owned by a real estate holding trust. If council approves the resolution, the city would pay the trust $8,500 for the land, an amount set by a real estate appraiser.

Such condemnations are not at all unusual, according to City Attorney Clifton Fay. They usually occur when the city and the property owners cannot reach an agreement on how much the property is worth.

But that is not the case in this condemnation, according to Felton Grant, the city's right of way acquisition coordinator. In this case, the owner and the city agree that $8,500 is a fair price, but the title to the property has some legal issues that would make closing on the deal impossible to do in a timely fashion, so the city is going the condemnation route, Grant said.

"We negotiated in good faith, but when I turned it over to our attorney, he said there's no way we'd be able to close this in time," Grant said. "So when we get to that point, we go ahead and condemn the title."

The property is necessary to continue progress on a streetscape beautification project along the Wynnton corridor. The $1 million project is being funded 20 percent by Midtown Inc., and 80 percent by a Georgia Department of Transportation grant.

This story was originally published August 24, 2015 at 10:31 PM with the headline "City needs sliver of land to continue Wynnton project ."