‘The most egregious of the egregious:’ Business owner in showdown with VTA over land seized for San Jose BART extension

The day before Silicon Valley Granite owner Sridhar Kollareddy was forced to vacate his business of more than years he worked furiously into the early morning hours in an effort to move off the property as several -pound slabs of granite marble and porcelain as he could Located in San Jose s Little Portugal neighborhood Kollareddy s roughly -acre site stored slabs of stone sourced from around the world that are used to make everything from headstones to countertops But the land is part of more than acres seized by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority using eminent domain to make way for a long-awaited BART extension The transit agency which is in charge of constructing the -mile four-station line to extend BART from the Berryessa Transit Center in North San Jose through downtown and to Santa Clara revealed it requirements the land to build the th Street Little Portugal station On April Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Shella Deen issued a court order following a petition from VTA that required Silicon Valley Granite to vacate the site by April Any inventory left after that date the judge ruled would be considered abandoned and Kollareddy wouldn t be entitled to any compensation He disclosed he learned of the news when the order was filed with the court on April sending him into overdrive to relocate as multiple stone slabs as accomplishable He estimates the value of his inventory at several million dollars Sridhar Kollareddy owner talks about the difficulties of having to move all his granite at Silicon Valley Granite in San Jose Calif on Wednesday April Shae Hammond Bay Area News Group Employees move granite at Silicon Valley Granite in San Jose Calif on Wednesday April Nhat V Meyer Bay Area News Group Porcelain imported from Italy is stacked at Silicon Valley Granite in San Jose Calif on Wednesday April Shae Hammond Bay Area News Group Employees move granite at Silicon Valley Granite in San Jose Calif on Wednesday April Nhat V Meyer Bay Area News Group Sridhar Kollareddy owner directs employees while moving his granite at Silicon Valley Granite in San Jose Calif on Wednesday April Shae Hammond Bay Area News Group Granite is lined up at Silicon Valley Granite in San Jose Calif on Wednesday April Shae Hammond Bay Area News Group Granite is lined up at Silicon Valley Granite in San Jose Calif on Wednesday April Nhat V Meyer Bay Area News Group Show Caption of Sridhar Kollareddy owner talks about the difficulties of having to move all his granite at Silicon Valley Granite in San Jose Calif on Wednesday April Shae Hammond Bay Area News Group Expand Sheriff s deputies served Kollareddy with the court-ordered paperwork on Thursday according to his attorney Glenn Block of the California Eminent Domain Law Group Block reported his client has been given an additional -day notice Next week deputies will return to lock the gate and Kollareddy will have to abandon whatever is left Block estimates he ll be able to move out about of the inventory before then Each truck can deliver about stone slabs at a time The landowner Honco Capital and several other tenants have already settled with VTA and mostly departed But Kollareddy and Block commented VTA has repeatedly moved the goal posts when it comes to his relocation and what he requirements to do to receive appropriate compensation Court documents show that Silicon Valley Granite and VTA agreed that the business would vacate the property by March When that deadline came and passed the parties agreed to push the date out to April The business owner was given two separate deadlines beginning almost two years in advance and chose not to leave the property or file for relocation reimbursement VTA revealed in a report But Block mentioned that VTA is mischaracterizing the situation He noted that Kollareddy worked with the transit agency s consultants to try to find an auctioneer so he could sell off the rest of his inventory Other estimates he received announced that it would take six months to move everything and Block reported that VTA demanded that work to be done in to days what he called an impossible task Since December when VTA first notified Silicon Valley Granite that it might need to move Kollareddy has searched for relocation sites but located the cost of rent out of his reach at to a month I never stated that I m not going to move out he disclosed I have to get fair compensation then I ll go Since he hasn t located a new location for his business Kollareddy has enlisted the help of friends as far as Colma and Tracy to help him store the inventory An immigrant from Hyderabad India Kollareddy travelled to the United States in the s to sell materials from his family s quarry He relocated to the U S in and eventually opened up his own business at one point he even had multiple locations But when the housing bubble burst in and the recession hit people stopped remodeling their homes and Kollareddy s business suffered I do it as a passion he noted That s why I ve been doing it all my life Silicon Valley Granite s eviction comes as VTA executives struggle to bridge a million to billion funding gap for the BART extension project The Federal Transit Administration declared in August that it could cover of the cost of the billion megaproject less than the nearly billion that local transit executives had sought The agency has been working on identifying cost savings which has included converting the th Street Little Portugal station s parking structure to surface parking In a report VTA mentioned the timeline for the th Street station is not germane in this situation as the business owner has failed to comply with previous agreements he made to leave the property The BART Phase II project construction has begun and timelines for specific elements of the project are subject to change This isn t the only situation where VTA is using eminent domain to make way for the BART extension The transit agency has been engaged in legal battles with several property owners in downtown San Jose certain of whom have mentioned that VTA has hurt their economic prospects during what they described as a land grab Several of VTA s eminent domain efforts have also been abandoned altogether and might have caused developmental delays to a proposed -story apartment building Block who has been an eminent domain attorney for more than two decades called VTA s actions egregious This is the majority egregious of the egregious he noted of Kollareddy s situation You can t get any further on the spectrum as far as the authorities trying to deny fair medicine and deny compensation to a business owner Kollareddy declared he plans to keep fighting If he doesn t get VTA compensation he revealed he ll have to start all over again as his entire savings is tied up in his inventory It s one of the worst feelings he declared I never expected this to happen in this country Never