Is there a way to get compensation for lost business revenues from government construction?
June 12, 2009
My family owns a small business close to our home. Few years ago, the city (or the state, I’m not sure) started doing construction around the area for building a new highway or something. This construction didn’t effect our business until recently. About 4 months ago, our store starting losing about half of our business revenues, which is really hurting our family’s finances (Many of our neighboring businesses are also hurting badly because of the construction). They basically destroyed and/or blocked off all the roads surrounding our store. It looks like the construction is going to be continued for at least 2 more years. However, I rarely see people working on the roads.
Is there anything that we can do about this? Should we sue the city or something? Is there any government compensation that we can file a claim for? To make matters worse, our building owner just raised the rent (unbelievable!!). Please help!!
You are fighting an upward battle… The city will claim that at their council meetings they were available for public input, where were you? They have notified you in the mail as well or so they will claim. If however, you voiced your concerns to the council, and they then were a hindrance to your finances, you have standing and can go to the city council with a suit that they will most likely put into arbritation.
This has happened over and over again in Clearwater Florida, beach street renovations. Its really tough for a business like your families. I think some of the best things those businesss did was to call the local tv station (all of them) and have them do stories on it. This didnt change the construction, but it reminded everyone in the community they were still there and needed business. I know several of my friends made a point to go to these businesses to patronize due to the stories on TV
Good Luck
I am afraid you cannot do anything legally but you can certainly take it up with your local alderman, city councilman, senator or mayor of your city. Maybe they will be able to speed up the work or put in an alternate route around the construction so that people can have access to your business. You could also talk to the landlord and ask him to give you a break on the rent instead of just raising your rent arbitrarily especially in light of the construction situation. I know what you are going through as I owned a business which went through something similar.
Good luck.