The process to build another road in and out of Silver Creek has been going on for more than a decade. Two years ago, Summit County decided where the road would go. That started the process to buy rights of way from multiple landowners along the route.
Last week, the county announced it was buying not only the 3-acre right of way through land west of Greenfield Road, it was buying the whole parcel.
According to a report from Summit County staffers, the county spent $3.8 million — about $2.6 million from savings and the rest from a corridor preservation fund — for 40 acres in the middle of the proposed road route.
The Silver Creek neighborhood is north of the intersection of Interstate 80 and U.S. 40. The new road would run east/west, connecting Bitner Ranch Road with Silver Creek Road near the Mountain Life Church.
A creek bed runs through the land, which also holds a single-family home. The staff report identifies the location as an ideal spot for what's called a wetland mitigation bank.
If a construction project impacts existing wetlands, federal law requires those damages be offset in another location. Summit County Manager Tom Fisher said if an entity does not have a mitigation bank, it is required to replace more wetlands than it disturbs. The county does not now have a mitigation bank, and Fisher said acquiring a bank was one potential benefit of this purchase, but not the only one.
“If we want to recover some of the funds that, or all of the funds that, we use to purchase the property in the first place, we could subdivide it under its current zoning and sell off the lots in order to put those monies back into county coffers,” he said.
Fisher said the county is still acquiring rights of way and negotiating with two or three other property owners to build the road. Some property owners have appealed the county’s valuation of their land to the state ombudsman. The staff report detailing this purchase shows the 3 acres needed for the right of way was valued at $98,000 per acre. The county purchased the entire parcel for $95,000 per acre.
If the county cannot reach a deal with the landowners, it would be empowered to proceed with the project anyway.
“We always have the ability to use eminent domain," Fisher said. "We haven't had to do that up until this point on this project. There are still some properties, or some right of way, that is not acquired. So there may be a point at which we do have to talk eminent domain.”
Fisher said if the county invokes eminent domain, it would still have to pay the landowners fair market value for their land.
