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WEST VALLEY CITY — Bailey Sanchez and her mother are living in a demolition zone.
The Utah Department of Transportation gave them until May 8 to move out. The week after that, UDOT plans to tear down the house they've lived in for 22 years to make way for new power lines going in prior to construction of the Mountain View Corridor.
UDOT did offer them — along with 44 other homeowners in the area — fair market value for their homes. But in a recession, fair is relative, according to the homeowners.
I'm heartbroken. I've been in this house since I was 6 months old. We would've lived here forever.
–Bailey Sanchez, West Valley resident
#sanchez_quote
Sanchez said they got about 18 percent less than their seven-bedroom, three-bathroom home is worth, even in a recession. But they had never even thought of moving before UDOT came knocking at their door.
"I'm heartbroken," she said. "I've been in this house since I was 6 months old. We would've lived here forever."
They're one of the last families on Bills Drive to leave the area, and UDOT has already begun tearing down homes where their neighbors lived.
"I come home every day and there's another house gone," Sanchez said.
Of the 45 homes that stand in the way of making the 35-mile freeway a reality, UDOT has reached an agreement with the occupants of 43 of them. The remaining two are struggling with finances as they are upside-down in their mortgages, said UDOT's Mountain View Corridor project director Teri Newell.
"It's difficult any time you're trying to move someone out of their home. It's always an emotional issue for them," she said Friday.
Very few cases end up in court, but when they do, Newell said the process is beneficial in establishing the value of a property.
"I knew it was a possibility that they'd build a road there, but I wasn't anticipating the market would crash," Harding said Friday. He understands the need for UDOT to relocate utilities now, to save them millions down the road, but he says his lenders would take $10,000 more than what UDOT is offering him. And he doesn't have it.
"They're basically trying to pick up houses for as little as legally possible," Harding said, adding that he's run out of options and will likely "end up in bankruptcy over just 10 grand."
He said taxpayers shouldn't have to bail him out, but his mortgage also shouldn't have to bear the cost of a highway project.
"It's an uneven distribution of benefits," he said.
Newell said that other than the remaining two homes in negotiation, the process has been fairly pain-free.
"We do follow the federal process of the Uniform Relocation Act and the intent is to be fair to the property owner, but also be fair to the taxpayer as well," she said, adding that she's been pleased with the compliance of homeowners so far.
The federal process includes homeowners in every step of the way, from the initial appraisal, to an offer for relocation or trade for property equal in value, to the actual acquisition, Newell said.
Harding had looked into it and figured it would be done fairly, but he was just hit with a double-whammy when the housing market collapsed amid economic uncertainty.
The homes on Bills Drive are the first group of properties needing to be acquired for the project, as construction moves farther north. Since work began in the summer of 2010, 18 miles of the freeway are now under construction — three miles on 2100 North in Utah County, and 15 miles from 16000 South to 5400 South in Salt Lake County.
That segment is expected to be complete by fall 2013.
UDOT has yet to obtain funding to take the road beyond 5400 South and does not have an anticipated date for any additional construction, nor has it obtained the funds necessary to continue the project.
Meanwhile, bridges and structures are taking shape where land once sat vacant, 30,000 feet of drainage pipe has been installed, and at least 400 workers have cleared 255,000 cubic yards of earth for drainage ponds to gather rainfall along the future roadway.
"It's definitely coming along," Newell said.
The current acquisition is to accommodate the relocation of two existing power lines and to construct a new power line within the MVC utility corridor. Relocating the lines now eliminates duplication of efforts in the future, Newell said.
But progress on the anticipated roadway is certainly overshadowed by people losing their homes, Sanchez said.
"In my whole life, I have never moved," she said. "All my memories have been in one place." Her family is in the process of building a new house in Sandy but construction on that home can't begin until they're out of this one, as negotiations with UDOT are still under way.
"There's nothing that compares to our house," she said, adding that the whole thing has been a major inconvenience. Most of their belongings will go into storage while Sanchez and her mother split up to live with different relatives.
"They've been telling us for 15 years that they were going to buy our house and build a road through here," she said. "But no one ever really did anything. This time, it all just happened so fast."
Many of the other residents on Bills Drive got out of their homes quickly, after the initial January deadline was mentioned. Only a handful still remain, but empty homes and piles of rubble where homes previously stood remind Sanchez of a ghost town.
Email:wleonard@ksl.com
