VIRGINIA BEACH — A five-person jury decided Walton Funeral Home should be compensated roughly $350,000 for a Dominion Energy permanent easement on its property for high voltage power lines.
The verdict came Thursday at the end of a four-day eminent domain trial in Virginia Beach Circuit Court with Judge Scott Flax presiding. The trial was held because the funeral home owner and the power company had been unable to reach an agreement on just compensation for three high voltage power lines that cross over the property.
“Dominion handled this terribly,” Frank Walton, who owns the land and operates the funeral home, said after the verdict came in. “This is a classic example of corporate greed and overreach.”
Representatives from Dominion Energy declined to speak with the media during and after the conclusion of the trial. It was unclear whether the utility would appeal.
Dominion Energy installed transmission lines for its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project across Walton Funeral Home’s property entrance and parking lot on Holland Road after a judge permitted the company early entry last summer. Dominion also installed large poles adjacent to the property.
As of last August, Walton’s was one of four properties Dominion was seeking to acquire for the project through the process of eminent domain. It’s unclear if the others have been resolved.
Walton Funeral Home has operated at the same location for more than 60 years. Frank Walton’s parents started the business.
Much of this week’s trial centered around testimony from each sides’ appraisers. Dominion’s appraiser Nancy Dove said she believed Walton’s compensation should be $25,700; while Walton’s appraiser Michael Ray said it should be $705,000.
“She deeply undervalued the land,” Walton, 56, said of the power company’s appraiser.
Walton’s attorney, Stephen Clarke, argued the transmission poles and lines diminished the tranquility of the business property where families come to grieve.
The power line construction also limits changes Walton can make to the property. Walton’s parking lot can remain under the high voltage lines, but any expansion of it would require Dominion’s approval. Dove said the triangular shaped area wouldn’t likely be developed anyway and that the loss of trees wouldn’t affect a future sale.
“Nobody’s going to build anything there,” she said.
But she did admit that Dominion’s equipment had an effect.
“There is no doubt the property has changed,” Dove said.
Clarke alleged Dove had a biased opinion based on information she included in her appraisal about potential positive aspects of the offshore wind project and her history of conducting appraisals for Dominion Energy.
Dominion’s attorney Michael Lacy tried to discredit Ray’s appraisal methods. An appraisal reviewer testified that he believed Ray inflated the value of Walton’s land based on the comparable commercial land sales he used, which were located in higher traffic areas of Virginia Beach.
The jury visited the funeral home site on Monday.
“We’ve lost every semblance of what we had in terms of privacy and serenity,” Walton said as he testified Wednesday. “We essentially look like an industrial zone.”
He also cited the disruptions his business faced when Dominion cleared trees from his property and installed poles and transmission lines. At one point, Walton cried as he talked about his parents’ legacy and his own.
Before the jury deliberated, Clarke urged them to consider the impact of their decision.
“You are the voice in the community on this issue,” Clarke said. “You can speak very loudly to Dominion about how Virginia Beach citizens react when Dominion takes a small business owner’s property for a $10 billion project and doesn’t want to pay what’s fair.”
The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm is being built 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach and will include 176 wind turbines. The $9.8 billion project will generate energy to power up to 660,000 homes, according to Dominion. Offshore construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.
Undersea cables will deliver the wind turbine-generated energy onshore at State Military Reservation in Virginia Beach. The cables will continue underground to Naval Air Station Oceana. From there, above-ground concrete monopoles and power lines will continue toward Dam Neck Road, connecting with an existing transmission right-of-way near the Castleton neighborhood, according to the city.
The proposed route continues west, overlapping the former Southeastern Parkway and Greenbelt roadway project until just past Princess Anne Road. It then moves southwest, crossing Salem Road and the Intracoastal Waterway in Chesapeake. The route turns south toward Battlefield Golf Course before heading west to Dominion’s existing Fentress Substation in Chesapeake.
Walton Funeral Home, located along a section of Holland Road between Dam Neck Road and Nimmo Parkway, sits in the crux of the onshore transmission route.
Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com
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