PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. — The city of Pigeon Forge released a statement Thursday after a YouTube account from an Ohio family who bought a second home in Pigeon Forge gained hundreds of thousands of views.
Mika and Doug Race bought a 1,047-square-foot house on Ogle Drive near the Parkway in August 2022. Mika said the home "fell into their lap" for a good price, at $306,000. She also said the family spent several months renovating the home.
She also said the family had no knowledge the house was in the route of a new road project and had no idea the house was subject to be seized by the city.
"This was going to be in our family for generations," Mika told WBIR over Zoom. "It wasn't monetary... This was about building a legacy."
The city of Pigeon Forge said city commissioners approved the Westside Connection Route nine months before the Races bought the house.
"For more than 30 years, the city of Pigeon Forge has worked toward providing Pigeon Forge residents with a much-needed alternative route to bypass Parkway traffic," City Manager Earlene Teaster said in a statement. "To meet this need, the City Commission approved the building of the Westside Connector."
The new road would connect Pine Mountain Road and West Mill Creek Road and would run through the Race's house on Ogle Drive. The house was demolished in early July.
WBIR asked Knoxville lawyer, John Valliant Jr., with decades of experience in real estate law, about eminent domain and the risks property owners take when purchasing a property.
"The federal government, state government, county government, the city government has the power of eminent domain," Valliant said. "Say, they have a project that they're interested in pursuing, and your property is included in that area. They can take that property, but they have to pay you fair market value for it."
He said the government has to examine a way to provide services with the least cost to taxpayers.
"It might be easier for them to take this road and run it around that way, knock off this one house, rather than a bunch," he said. "They're out there on their own, and it's cheaper to take their house. Government's going to weigh costs."
The Races said they learned the house would be taken for imminent domain on March 6, 2023, and immediately went to City Hall to fight it. Mika has made several public comments in city council meetings since, citing a different plan for the road that did not originally run through their house.
"We learned that the road was initially going through the undeveloped campground, at the time it was an undeveloped campground," Mika said. "The road moved to come through our house, and so we ask, 'Why did the road get moved?'"
The city said they followed the procedure and appraised the property as a commercial property at $489,665.
"Usually when you were appraising something commercially, the amount is going to be the value of the property is going to be greater as a commercial property than it would be as a residential property," Valliant said.
The Races said their documents from the city's appraisal cited the property as R2 or residential. The family said they purchased the property which was zoned C6, or commercial.
"To date, the Races have not submitted an alternate appraisal of the property. In an effort to provide compensation to the Races, in October 2023, the city offered $490,000, and the Races counter-offered with $3 million," Teaster said.
Trish McGee, a public relations representative for the city of Pigeon Forge, also responded Friday and said a judge had signed an order to pay off the Races' mortgage on Thursday.
"The funds are not 'in limbo,'" she said. "Those funds have been available to the Races since February."
McGee called the Races' view of the appraisal classification "inaccurate," saying the property was appraised as a commercial property and not as a residential property.
The Races are currently taking legal action and said they were not able to discuss their counteroffer of $3 million for their home. However, they feel the situation was handled unfairly and say they feel the appraisal of their home was not done correctly.
"That's all we've ever asked, is to make it right," Mika said. "We never ask for anything other than what rightfully belongs to our family. And everything about this smells wrong, everything about it looks wrong."