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for what he thought was the likely possibility that there would
be no approval for residential development. Hulberg’s conclusion
that residential development would not be approved was a fact
that was not known or reasonably foreseen on the valuation date
or at the time of the execution of the June 1994 agreement. It
also ignores the fact that the Busch property was actively
pursued by Ponderosa and other knowledgeable developers who
placed a value far in excess of $25,000 on the property. We do
not accept Hulberg’s $25,000 opinion of value and find his
approach to be nothing more than a disguised attempt to
circumvent and ignore the highest and best use of the property at
the time of valuation and to thereby value it as farmland.
Petitioner’s advocacy of the $25,000-per-acre value also
ignores the fact that the Busch property abutted the city of
Pleasanton and was adjacent to fully developed residential
property. More importantly, petitioner did not deal with the
fact that several developers were eager to develop the Busch
property. In order to accept petitioner’s/Hulberg’s approach, we
would have to conclude that Ponderosa (and the other developers
who were interested in the property) were either unaware of or
did not fully consider the difficulties that could have been
encountered in obtaining approval of the property for development
into residential property. Other developers offered $150,000 per
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