In Re South Burlington-Shelburne Highway Project

¶ 1. Seven landowners (collectively “Landowners”) appeal from the superior court’s grant of a necessity petition for condemnation filed by the Vermont Agency of Transportation (“VTrans”) to acquire additional land and land rights needed to widen and reconstruct a segment of U.S. Route 7 passing through Shelburne and South Burlington. Landowners claim that VTrans failed to comply with 19 V.S.A. § 33 and that the superior court failed to apply that statutory provision when considering VTrans’s necessity petition. We find that VTrans was not required to adhere to the provisions of 19 V.S.A. § 33…