A similar thing happened to my childhood home. We had already moved away years earlier, but every so often I would still drive by the "old house" to see what changes had been made.
One year I drove by, and it was gone. I talked to my mom, and it turns out that the city had bought up the 2 houses to the right of our old one, and the one across the street, and they were going to extend an existing road through those lots to connect to another street behind it.
Only, there was one other house that they needed to buy - and it was owned by a friend of my mom's so she heard the story directly from them. The owner and her husband were offered a fair market price for their house, but the husband got greedy and said "they have to buy us out - they can't put the street through without us" (their house was blocking the street - it sat directly in the path) Apparently he was all "what are they going to do, go AROUND us?" and went back and demanded some ridiculous amount of money.
They went around him.
So, instead of going straight through, the city bought 2 other houses, including our old one, and put a giant curve *around* the house that my mom's friend wouldn't sell, and then put a city park in where the original road would have gone.
So my childhood home is now a park! It's fun because they kept all the really tall trees that were in our back yard - so we can still sort of see our "yard" - but the house is gone, and the driveway that went "down" one storey into the carport, is filled in and covered over.
My mom's friend - they *cannot* sell their house - it's right on this big street, and the city took most of their front yard (all the "city" property) so it's lost so much value.
One year I drove by, and it was gone. I talked to my mom, and it turns out that the city had bought up the 2 houses to the right of our old one, and the one across the street, and they were going to extend an existing road through those lots to connect to another street behind it.
Only, there was one other house that they needed to buy - and it was owned by a friend of my mom's so she heard the story directly from them. The owner and her husband were offered a fair market price for their house, but the husband got greedy and said "they have to buy us out - they can't put the street through without us" (their house was blocking the street - it sat directly in the path) Apparently he was all "what are they going to do, go AROUND us?" and went back and demanded some ridiculous amount of money.
They went around him.
So, instead of going straight through, the city bought 2 other houses, including our old one, and put a giant curve *around* the house that my mom's friend wouldn't sell, and then put a city park in where the original road would have gone.
So my childhood home is now a park! It's fun because they kept all the really tall trees that were in our back yard - so we can still sort of see our "yard" - but the house is gone, and the driveway that went "down" one storey into the carport, is filled in and covered over.
My mom's friend - they *cannot* sell their house - it's right on this big street, and the city took most of their front yard (all the "city" property) so it's lost so much value.
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