City to hear comments on exchanging property with business

BECKLEY — At Tuesday’s Common Council meeting, a second reading and public hearing will take place in an attempt to pass an ordinance regarding the use of property on Prince Street.

City Treasurer/Recorder Gary Sutphin explained where the property is and exactly what the city hopes to do.

“The property in reference is down at the bottom of Prince Street, on the right, across from the Beckley Intermodal Gateway where the Zaferatos Real Estate offices are.”

He explained that the Zaferatos family is incorporated as Tom & Jerry Inc., and said about a year ago, they performed some work to the property by paving the lot and putting in parking spaces for their real estate business.

The problem was, the property line essentially ran down the middle of the property, splitting ownership between the Zaferatos and the City of Beckley, Sutphin explained.

“We could have gone in and said, ‘No, you can’t do this; we want our property back,’ but nobody would have won because the property line, more or less, almost splits through most of the spots down there,” he said. “So we agreed to let them have the first so many spots on the lot and then right below, we would have spots for the city.”

At council’s last meeting, March 27, the first reading of an ordinance for the city to enter into a deed of exchange with Tom & Jerry Inc., in reference to the property, was unanimously passed. However, Councilman at large Tim Berry abstained from voting due to a conflict of interest since he is a Realtor for Zaferatos. He’s also a retired Beckley Police officer.

Now, this Tuesday, the public can have their say, though Sutphin doesn’t expect to hear any opposition as there will be no money exchanging hands. He also added that if an agreement couldn’t be made, the property would basically be useless.

“We were kind of put into a tough situation, because we couldn’t just say, ‘OK, you beautified everything so we will just let you have it,’” he said. “We couldn’t do that, and we didn’t want to be unfair to them, because we want to support local business. So we thought this solution would work out best for the both of us.”

Berry, who spoke on behalf of Zaferatos Real Estate, said he believed both parties were satisfied and planned to move forward with the solution of a deed of exchange.

The meeting will take place at Council Chambers at 7:30 p.m.

Source: http://www.register-herald.com/todaysfrontpage/x611947184/City-to-hear-comments-on-exchanging-property-with-business