Man Wins Award Worth 3 Times City's Budget

The residents of Half Moon Bay are reeling after a judge ruled that the California city has to buy 24 acres on the coast for $36.8 million - more than three times the city's annual operating budget, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The crux of the ruling: The city's effort to improve drainage a generation ago created wetlands on the property that now make it off-limits for development under state and federal environmental laws. That prevents the landowner, a developer named Charles Keenan, from building the 83 homes he wanted to build.

He's still taking a handsome profit on the land, though. He bought it in 1993 at a foreclosure sale. For $1 million.

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