Route 356 in Buffalo Township sees lots of traffic. It also sees a number of crashes.

To address that, PennDOT believes the best solution is to widen the road. The agency plans to take the two existing lanes and bump them up to five. The project is projected to cost about $28 million.

Part of that cost includes the acquisition of the property needed to expand the road. Twelve properties, including nine homes and three businesses, need to be purchased to make the project happen.

This isn’t unusual. These kinds of acquisitions and eminent domain purchases have to occur to make many public projects possible.

Government needs to do more than just pay for the property, though. It needs to make the process make sense for the people involved.

Often, the focus in these cases is on the bottom line. Property owners must be fairly compensated for the homes or businesses in question. They should not lose the money invested because of something outside their control. At the same time, the government has a responsibility to make the project as cost effective as possible.

Anyone who has bought or sold a home knows that the price isn’t everything. There are other factors, including the speed and ease of the transaction, and the small inducements included to sweeten the deal. For some, that might be the appliances or some furnishings.

The PennDOT purchases are unnecessarily complicated in multiple ways.

First, there is the time frame. Property owners originally were given notice of the project in 2020. Five years later, they still are sitting in homes that haven’t been purchased. Knowing what is coming, they are ready to move on. James Buchanan wants to downsize. Amy Eddinger wants to move closer to the hospital where she works.

But with construction now slated for 2027, they are stuck in limbo. No one will buy their properties, and the state has yet to write any checks.

While they are in that limbo, there are other things they can’t do. Refrigerator breaks down? Want a new dishwasher? Replacing appliances means paying money for something that must stay with the house. Appliances aren’t allowed to be taken. Any maintenance on a property destined to be torn down also seems pointless, leaving homeowners sitting in buildings where any repairs are dollars wasted.

PennDOT has rules about how fast property owners must leave after a sale is concluded. Once everything is signed off, they have 90 days to vacate.

It seems perfectly fair to expect a state agency to consider the timely impact of executing an offer and completing an acquisition.

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