After months of asking three property owners to temporarily give up ownership of their land to the city, Arroyo Grande filed a lawsuit against them for eminent domain.

On June 3, the city filed the suit against Adam Hideo Saruwatari, Raffi M. Kaloosian, and Pacific Fuel Group LLC for temporary easements to access and stage for construction on the Traffic Way Bridge.

City engineer Shannon Sweeney told City Council members during an April 23 meeting that replacement operations are crucial to ensure the longevity of the bridge's role in easing traffic congestion through the city.

• Screenshot From The Arroyo Grande City Council Meeting
• EMINENT DOMAIN Arroyo Grande says it needs temporary eminent domain over nine properties to access and make repairs to the Traffic Way Bridge. So far, six property owners have signed agreements, and the city filed a lawsuit against the last three.

"If you crawled underneath Traffic Way Bridge today, what you would see are piers. When this bridge was built, those piers were embedded 23 feet into the ground. This creek scours the dirt away, and so now some of them have lost up to 9 feet of dirt embedment," Sweeney said during the meeting. "It has a load limit now, and the fear is that if we don't get this bridge replaced in a timely manner, that it will be closed prematurely because it will fail to be able to carry the load that it needs to carry."

Construction on the bridge is estimated to take 36 months beginning on Aug. 1. Crews will need access to farm roads that run through nine properties in the area.

"It's important that we get certification of these temporary construction easements by the end of August, reason being is if Caltrans doesn't certify them by that date, they'll deem our project as not ready to continue, and we will lose a year," Sweeney said. "That's problematic for a couple of reasons. First one is, I don't really want to go through into the rainy season if I don't have to with the scour potential on those piers."

Sweeney said if the project gets delayed, other projects in the pipeline such as street completion will get delayed in turn, as the city doesn't have resources to work on multiple projects at once.

City staff went through four findings that make this project necessary. The first was that the bridge is important for traffic circulation, and a lack of timely repairs will be disruptive.

"There will be temporary light signals where there aren't right now. Bridge Street will be converted to a one-way. It's going to be disrupted as it is, and if we had to close it prematurely, then that means we have to ensure that for longer," Sweeney said. "The new bridge will improve public safety and ... the failure to secure those easements by August of 2024 really does jeopardize the schedule for both this project and future large construction projects."

The city made offers of compensation to the nine property owners using fair market appraisals for each one. Six of them have made agreements with the city, and Sweeney said they will continue negotiating with the last three.

Arroyo Grande City Manager Matthew Downing told New Times that the city is working with the property owners to "amicably obtain the temporary easements, as the City Council and staff do not prefer to go through the eminent domain process."

None of the property owners responded to New Times' request for comment before press time, and none spoke during public comment at the April 23 meeting.

Sweeney said eminent domain would only be for three years and the properties would be returned to their previous conditions. However, if the city can't acquire temporary eminent domain, then it would consider permanent easements on those properties.

"We only need temporary easements, which is quite nice, so we don't have to secure permanent easements," she said. "It'd be horrible if this bridge failed or premature bridge closure as a result of an inspection determining that it is no longer safe to use. Property to be acquired is necessary for this project because a contractor needs to be able to get to the construction site and that's what accesses heavy equipment, and materials need to be stored in a facility and position that's cost-effective." Δ