An evangelical Christian church can collect damages from government agencies over the construction of a wall that blocked motorists from seeing the church from a nearby freeway, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled today.
Marilyn Hickey Ministries, whose headquarters are next to Interstate 25, argued that its property value was diminished when the state Department of Transportation and the Regional Transportation District built a retaining wall up to 40 feet high to accommodate a light-rail line.
“We felt it was a significant loss of visibility,” said the church’s attorney, Leslie Fields.
CDOT and RTD condemned some of the church’s property in Greenwood Village, a southeast Denver suburb, in 2001 to build the rail line and retaining wall as part of the T-REX highway widening project.
Arapahoe County District Judge Marilyn Leonard had ruled that state law does not allow compensation for such loss of visibility.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court reversed the lower court and sent the case to a court-appointed board of commissioners to determine the amount of damages the church could collect.
But the appeals court denied the church’s request that it also be allowed to collect compensation for the loss of visibility caused by portions of the retaining wall that are on adjacent property.
Fields declined to comment further because the value of that visibility has yet to be determined.
Leonard’s original ruling also said the church could collect compensation for blockage of the view in the opposite direction, from the property. That decision was not appealed.
