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Two Blokes Jul 7 -
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NEWTOWN BOROUGH, PA — Newtown Borough plans to use its power of eminent domain to acquire 22 Liberty Street, the current home of the town's police department. After negotiations failed to produce an agreement on rent between the borough and the Newtown Fire Association, which owns the property at 22 Liberty Street, the council announced plans Wednesday night to begin the process of taking the property from the fire association through eminent domain, or condemnation. Eminent domain is the power of the government to take private property for public use, even if the owner does not want to sell. The power is balanced by the requirement that the government must provide just compensation to the property owner for the taking. The council plans to introduce a resolution at its July 16 meeting exercising its power of eminent domain to acquire the property for continued use as a police station. The borough has leased the propery for the past the 25 years from the association. Its current lease is set to expire on July 31. According to borough solicitor Greg Heleniak, the borough has been in negotiations with the fire association for the past sèveral months but were unable to reach an agreement “to reflect a financially supported rent” for the borough. “The fire association presented a proposal for future rents for the property, which the borough sought to confirm underneath our obligations as a municipality, whether those rents were supported under fair market value,” said Heleniak. “Our office, on behalf of the borough, had an appraisal done which we presented to the NFA through the negotiations but the borough and the NFA were unable to reach an agreement.” According to a source close to the negotiations, after 15 years of leasing the building to the borough for $1500 per month, the fire company asked for an additional $4,000 a month going forward, boosting the rent up to 5500. “We’ve been charging Newtown Borough $1500 a month at our own loss,” the source said. “We finally said fair market value based on tax assessment database numbers and square footage price. They said no. And that’s no in the face of they just discontinued their agreement with the township on what they will pay to the fire company.” Knowing that the borough needs a location for the police department to operate out of, Heleniak recommended the borough move forward with eminent domain procedures granted to the borough under the borough code. Ultimately, Heleniak said the borough would acquire title to the property and continue to use it for a public purpose, that being the police department. “The value of the property would be determined by the appraisal process or through a public review process of the evaluation and the borough would be obligated to compensate the NFA in that amount,” he said.
