Forest Preserve District Commissioner Kathleen Konicki (R-Homer Glen) on Thursday criticized her colleagues’ decision to pay $1 million for 66 acres southeast of Manhattan.
The Wilton Township property, on the eastside of the district’s Laughton Preserve, will provide public access at the preserve’s north end and buffer the Forked Creek floodplain.
“We settled for 2 1/2 times the original appraisal,” said Konicki, who abstained during the vote. “That’s a lot less acres we’re going to be buying.”
The vote to settle the issue came only days before the district’s eminent domain action against the farm was scheduled for a court hearing.
Property owners Lawrence and Charlotte Domagalla had argued that their farmland southwest of West Domagalla Street and South Elevator Road is worth $16,000 per acre. The Domagallas also argued that forest district appraisals in 2003 and 2004 valuing the property at $6,000 per acre failed to acknowledge rapid residential development around Manhattan.
Commissioners responded by hiring a third appraisal of the property last month. That appraisal generally agreed with the Domagallas’ asking price.
Konicki, a private-practice attorney, didn’t dispute that the Domagallas’ land is worth $15,188 per acre, but she argued that state law freezes property value at appraisals when eminent domain is initiated. The forest district, she said, shouldn’t have ordered the third appraisal, which set the $15,188 per acre price.
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