The object of the road survey regarding the improvement of Highway 7 at Hamina was a location previously serving as the company’s service station property. The service station property owned by the company was located for the most part in an area designated in the local detailed plan as a traffic area (LT) and a portion of approx. 0,2 hectares thereof was located in a buffering green zone (EV-1). The company demanded that said service station property be expropriated in its entirety both in regard of the traffic area as well as the buffering green zone as the company had no use for the remaining buffering green zone. The compensation for the ground should be confirmed at 40 EUR per square meter. As the party responsible for road management, the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment of Southeast Finland (ELY Centre) deemed that the object for the expropriation should only include the traffic area. The ELY Centre proposed the value of the ground to be 4 EUR per square meter.
The party responsible for road management was ordered in the road survey to expropriate the part of the property which belonged to the traffic area. The expropriation committee deemed that the remaining property designated in the local detailed plan as buffering green zone had lost its value as a commercial property and presently only corresponded to the value of raw land, which was 2 EUR per square meter. The expropriation committee ordered the difference between the compensation for the ground in the traffic area and the value of raw land to be compensated to the company as a decrease in the value of the remaining property.
By virtue of the company’s appeal the Land Court repealed the survey decision regarding the decrease in the value of the remaining property and ordered also the remaining property to be expropriated. The Land Court further increased the compensation to amount to 23 EUR per square meter in regard to the entire expropriated property.
The party responsible for road management, i.e. the ELY Centre, appealed the decision of the Land Court before the Supreme Court. The question raised before the Supreme Court was limited to whether the party responsible for road management was obliged to expropriate also the remaining property from the company.
The Supreme Court left the outcome of the judgment of the Land Court unaltered. As its conclusion the Supreme Court stated that as the highway gave rise to substantial inconvenience in using the remaining property and such inconvenience cannot be eliminated or materially reduced through land consolidation, there are grounds for expansion of expropriation as referred to in Section 67 of the Highways Act. The party responsible for road management, i.e. the ELY Centre, was therefore obliged to expropriate from the company even the remaining property located in the area designated in a local detailed plan as buffering green zone in accordance with the company’s demands.
