The long-awaited U.S. Highway 93 bypass may soon see a financial boon, with Congress likely throwing nearly $3 million in appropriations money at the project and the further possibility of federal stimulus funds. But until officials secure right-of-way designations, money alone won’t hasten its completion.
Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester announced last week that the Kalispell area is in line for more than $6 million in projects if Congress approves the 2009 Appropriations Bill, including $2.85 million for the bypass. The state was also allotted more than $600 million in federal stimulus money last month, with about $212 million for highway and bridge construction.
Unsecured right-of-way designations along the bypass route, however, are the missing cogs needed to bring the road closer to reality. In other words, there are still landowners in the proposed route of the bypass who haven’t sold. If the route isn’t secured within the next year, the project would be out of the running for stimulus monies.
Interviews with some landowners, who say they’re concerned with what they consider “low-ball appraisal numbers” from the state, indicate that securing the remaining right-of-ways could be difficult.
After about two years of acquisition work, the Montana Department of Transportation has secured right-of-way designations for 155 of the 273 parcels needed for the bypass, or about 57 percent. That’s up from numbers presented at a committee meeting last October, when the department reported 173 right-of-way parcels remaining.
In the southern portion of the bypass, which is expected to build-out next and stretches from south Kalispell near Gardner’s R.V. and Trailer Center to U.S. Highway 2, 56 parcels are remaining, including major landowner Siderius Family Limited Partnership. A commercial center and large residential development are proposed for the Siderius property.
The right-of-way process begins with an appraisal from a state-hired appraiser. If the landowner declines the state’s offer they can agree to a court-guided and binding negotiation process between each side’s appraisers. At least one bypass landowner, according to city officials and area landowners, has committed to this process.
Ultimately, the state can also condemn the property, in which case a judge or jury determines the property amount.
The state uses its right of eminent domain for highways sparingly, MDT Director Jim Lynch said. “To condemn a roadway we really have to be at the end,” he said. “We’ll sit down and negotiate with the landowner as long as we can.”
Lynch pointed to a recent Billings project where the department secured rights for 103 parcels without condemnation as proof of their hesitancy to force a landowner’s hand.
But several local landowners contacted by the Beacon said they were concerned about low appraisal estimates from the state. Appraisals are difficult right now, given the depressed real estate market and drastically decreased number of real estate sales. State appraisers often come from outside the area, property owners added, and don’t have the localized experience to make up for the lack of statistics.
According to court documents, several Northwest Montana residents have had success taking the state to court over right-of-way appraisals over the past three decades. Of about 30 such cases, landowners ended up with awards that were on average 70 percent higher than the state’s original offer. One landowner’s court-negotiated value was 1,700 percent higher than the original offer for the land, or the difference between $1,100 and $18,700.
If the state gets entwined in similar legal battles with bypass landowners, it would likely mean an end to hopes for stimulus monies, which come with time constraints.
Half of the stimulus funding has to be obligated within 120 days of the bill’s approval date, Feb. 17 – a near impossibility for the bypass. The other half must be obligated by Feb. 17, 2010, Lynch said. In order to qualify as “shovel-ready” and be eligible for stimulus money, a project must have its plans completed, environmental permits and right-of-way secured.
“It’s a use it or lose it provision,” Lynch said. “If we can’t get the money used within a short time then we have to give it back for somebody else. We don’t want to do that.”
At least one city official has expressed fears that the bypass is already out of the running. In a meeting between Tester, area business leaders and elected officials at the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce office two weeks ago, Kalispell Mayor Pam Kennedy started her request for stimulus money with a familiar mantra: “Bypass, bypass, bypass,” she told the senator.
The construction industry has been hit especially hard here, Kennedy said, and a large-scale project like the bypass would go a long way toward improving the local economy. The bypass, however, is only one of more than 200 projects being considered by MDT, she added, and stimulus monies will only go so far.
“I believe that the state of Montana is not putting the bypass into the $211 million (allocated for roads) and that concerns me,” she said.
In an interview with the Beacon before the event, Tester suggested right-of-way acquisitions were the biggest hold up for the project. “I think there’s potential with the roads,” he said of the stimulus monies. “On the (U.S. 93) bypass, I think if you got some easements done, I think it would move.”