Baldwin Park : City to Pay for Inventory

The Redevelopment Agency has agreed to pay $450,000 compensation for business inventory to former owners of an auto salvage yard that the city condemned in 1979 to make way for the San Gabriel River Project.

The case led to a change in state redevelopment law when a state Court of Appeal judge ruled in 1984 that owners of businesses that were acquired through eminent domain and could not be relocated were entitled to compensation for business inventory.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge in 1982 had awarded $600,000 to Megan and Dennis Irving, former owners of Baldwin Auto Parts and Wreckers, for 6.2 acres of land, but had rejected the Irvings’ claim for compensation for their inventory, which included automobile parts and cars.