Cudahy : Jury Sets $570,000 Price for Condemned Property

After four years of bickering over the value of a property that the Cudahy Redevelopment Agency condemned to build a Tiangus shopping center, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury last week settled the matter.

After listening to real estate appraisers representing the Redevelopment Agency and the former property owners, Ted Burkett and his wife, Theresa Champagne, the jury decided that Burkett and Champagne should receive $570,000 for the one-third acre at Florence and Atlantic avenues, City Manager Jack Joseph said.

Burkett, who was left blind about seven years ago by diabetes, was asking $836,000 for the property, while his wife had asked for $696,000. When the Redevelopment Agency made its formal offer to buy out the Burketts in 1986, it offered $480,000, but later offered to settle out of court for $588,000, Joseph said. Burkett refused to accept the Redevelopment Agency’s offer.

Burkett sued the city when he heard that his property was going to be condemned, but a Superior Court judge ruled in the city’s favor. Burkett, who is now living in Bellflower, said the forced relocation has caused him a great deal of hardship. He said he plans to appeal the judge’s decision to allow the city to take his property for redevelopment.