THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 16, 1995 TAG: 9502160387
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
A Circuit Court judge on Wednesday rejected housing authority allegations that a private appraiser committed perjury in a $2.66 million property-condemnation case in East Ocean View.
``I do not find any evidence that the expert perjured himself. I don't find any evidence of fraud,'' Judge John E. Clarkson said after the city's redevelopment authority tried to prove Tyler Brown, an appraiser, had improperly increased his evaluation of the property.
The ruling could be a severe blow to the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority's attempt to reduce the condemnation award to landlord Dick Kelly.
If the $2.66 million is upheld, it could hinder the agency's efforts to acquire and raze a 90-acre redevelopment tract east of Shore Drive in East Ocean View.
The redevelopment authority has only $9 million of the anticipated $27 million to $35 million start-up costs.
Several owners of other East Ocean View property in the redevelopment tract sat in the court room, taking notes. There also were some private appraisers.
The city wants to clear the section so it can be rebuilt as a fashionable Bayfront neighborhood. The Kelly property is at 4215-85 E. Ocean View Ave. and 9615-85 23rd Bay St.
In January, a commission of five citizens set the $2.66 million figure as compensation for condemnation of Kelly's 102-unit apartment building.
In condemnation proceedings, the redevelopment agency contended that Kelly's apartment complex was worth only $1.3 million.
After the citizens commission awarded Kelly twice that amount, redevelopment lawyers alleged improprieties in the case, including fraud in preparation of a private appraisal for Kelly.
That was the angle of attack on Wednesday. Howard W. Martin Jr., an attorney for the agency, questioned the appraiser for nearly three hours.
Brown agreed that he had appraised Kelly's property at $1.68 million in March 1994, and had re-evaluated it at $2.75 million last fall in preparation for Kelly's challenge to the condemnation proceedings.
But Brown denied he had committed perjury or had changed the appraisal because Kelly was paying him. He said the higher figure was based on new information, including legal interpretations about condemnation law previously unknown to him.
``I changed my opinion,'' Brown said. ``But you cannot fight my integrity.''
Brown said he had to look at prices of East Ocean View properties that sold before 1989, when the redevelopment authority began working in the neighborhood. He said he made a projection into 1994 that did not include a market skewed by government-sponsored redevelopment.
Martin noted that the Kelly apartments were mostly vacant and boarded up by the fall of 1994, but Brown would not sway from his new appraisal.
``You may not like what he testified,'' Clarkson said. ``But that does not mean he lied.''
The redevelopment authority's efforts to reduce the $2.66 million condemnation award will continue in court in a few days with NRHA contentions that some members of the citizens commission may have acted improperly. by CNB