Va. Rejected Appraisal of Fairfax Land as Low;State Exceeded Valuation by $500,000 in Buying Lawmaker's Parcel
The state of Virginia paid a member of the General Assembly and a former Prince William County supervisor $500,000 more for a piece of land than the property was initially appraised for because state officials believed the appraisal was low, according to documents on the purchase.</br></br>The state bought the 3.8-acre parcel in November 1988 for $896,000 from state Del. David G. Brickley (D-Prince William) and G. Richard Pfitzner, according to state documents. Brickley and Pfitzner had purchased the property from the Veterans of Foreign Wars 15 months earlier for $315,000, according to Fairfax County land records.</br></br>Before the state offered to buy the property, it hired a private appraiser to determine the value of the parcel, state officials said. In a June 1988 report to the Virginia Department of Transportation, which was reported yesterday in the Journal Newspapers, the appraiser, Edward B. Atherton, estimated that the land was worth $395,000, according to the documents.</br></br>The parcel, which was needed for right of way for the future Fairfax County Parkway, apparently is the focus of a grand jury and FBI investigation of land purchases for the parkway, according to former landowners, attorneys and others interviewed by federal investigators.</br></br>In reviewing Atherton's appraisal shortly after it was submitted, a Transportation Department land acquisition official concluded that the appraisal was far too low because it was based on old property sales data and did not take into account more recent transactions in the area, according to the documents.