A trash company in Southeast Washington has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the District government denied it renovation permits in order to keep down the value of the company's property because the city wants the land for a baseball stadium.
Eastern Trans-Waste of Maryland Inc., which operates a solid waste transfer station at 1315 First St. SE, applied for construction permits in October 2003 to make "minor but necessary repairs." But city agencies unfairly denied the permits, the lawsuit alleges.
"The true motivation behind [city officials'] conduct has been their knowledge that the city might need to attempt to acquire the ETW property through eminent domain" for the stadium, according to the lawsuit.
M. Roy Goldberg, an attorney for Eastern Trans-Waste, said the company is "asking the city to grant our permit. We were wrongfully denied. We're entitled to damages for lost business."
The lawsuit says the company lost in excess of $1 million a year because it was unable to expand through renovations.
Traci L. Hughes, a spokeswoman for the D.C. attorney general's office, said she was aware of the lawsuit but declined to comment. The lawsuit was first reported yesterday by the Washington Times.
Eastern Trans-Waste is one of several companies that operate on the 21 acres earmarked for the stadium, which is supposed to be constructed for the Washington Nationals by March 2008. The city intends to buy the land this year. If the landowners refuse to sell, the city will seize it through eminent domain, and a court will decide the fair price.
Chris Bender, a spokesman for Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Bender said the city will begin contacting landowners soon to talk about how the negotiations will work. Officials cannot attempt to acquire the land until Natwar M. Gandhi, the city's chief financial officer, completes a cost analysis of the land for the stadium and related infrastructure. He has until May 15 to finish the study.
"We're trying to do as much as we can now, so that when the CFO comes in with his estimate, we will not have lost any time," Bender said.
In the lawsuit, Eastern Trans-Waste alleges that it applied for permits to do about $400,000 of work to modernize the building. The city denied the request, arguing that the company was trying to expand to accommodate 10 more employees even though the land would be rezoned soon from industrial to commercial and residential.
But Eastern Trans-Waste had not intended to add employees, the lawsuit says. The company had planned only to add 10 temporary contractors to do the renovations, Goldberg said.
Although Major League Baseball and the District did not formalize an agreement on the Southeast Washington site until September, the site had been among several leading options for more than two years. That is why Eastern Trans-Waste contends that the city was acting improperly and with an eye to acquiring the land as cheaply as possible, Goldberg said.
"We want to make sure the record is clear," he said. "We know what they're up to. It's not right."
