Developer accuses Canonsburg of ‘de facto condemnation’ of Greenwood site
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
A barrier at the end of Crawford Street is at the center of litigation in which a development company is accusing Canonsburg Borough of interfering with construction work on property it owns in neighboring North Strabane Township.
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
A barrier at the end of Crawford Street is at the center of litigation in which a development company is accusing Canonsburg Borough of interfering with construction work on property it owns in neighboring North Strabane Township.
A development company is seeking damages from Canonsburg for blocking access to its property – and its construction plans – with two dull yellow concrete barricades on Crawford Street.
Zokaites Contracting claims in a petition filed in Washington County Court that officials’ placing of concrete barriers at the end of the street next to the site of the planned Greenwood Village development amount to a “de facto condemnation” of the roughly 62-acre parcel. The company asks the court to appoint a board of viewers to access its purported losses.
“Under advice of legal (counsel), I’ve been asked not to make any statements,” Mayor Dave Rhome said Thursday. “I wish I could. That’s an ongoing issue. It’s been going on for a while.”
Borough manager Denise Lesnock and solicitor Jeff Derrico didn’t return messages left at their respective offices that day.
Zokaites is based in McCandless Township, Allegheny County. It’s listed in state records as general partner of Greenwood Village LP.
Greenwood has owned the 62-acre property in question since it bought it from the late Robert J. Ciaffoni’s estate for a listed price of $1.1 million a year ago.
In March, supervisors from North Strabane Township voted 4-1 to allow developers to move forward with their plans to build 233 homes off the property on Greenwood Drive. The decision settled litigation that Bove Development Corp. and Greenwood Village had brought against the township amid a yearslong dispute over the proposal.
Zokaites’ Nov. 15 petition says the supervisors’ approval requires “that a secondary connection to Crawford Street be made” in the second of five phases of work. The company’s lawyers, who are from the Butler County firm Dillon, McCandless, King, Coulter & Graham, characterize Crawford as “a legally-open public street” and says owners have been able to access it since 1950.
Exactly when the borough closed off the end of Crawford is unclear. The petition puts the date “on or about” June 27.
But minutes from a June 11 borough meeting quote Councilman Eric Chandler as saying “he drove on Crawford Street and commended (public works director Thomas) Lawrence on the barriers.”
On Nov. 13, meeting minutes show Derrico referring to a draft of an escrow agreement concerning the Greenwood project to which Terry Bove, the eponymous president of the development company, hadn’t responded. Instead, Derrico said the developer’s attorney had sent a letter informing him of the petition that was filed two days later.
Derrico also said those involved in the project claimed to him that their losses totaled $5.7 million. Minutes also show Derrico told officials the developer was claiming to have studied the borough’s stormwater system and provided a report, but that no one was aware of such a document.
Derrico also suggested appointing private counsel, but it’s unclear if officials did so.
“He said the lawsuit is premature and bullying,” according to the record. “Mr. Derrico said Council needs to consider neighbors down the hill from the development due to the storm water run-off.”
Zokaites’ attorneys didn’t answer a request for comment.