Hart

This is a proceeding to condemn a piece of land of the defendants constituting part of a quarter block of land in the city of Santa Barbara, bounded on the northwest by Mason and on the southwest by Anacapa street. The diag onals of the block lie north and south and east and west. The land sought to be condemned is a small triangular piece taken from the north corner of the defendants’ land. On the trial the witness Spader, called by the defendants as an expert witness, testified that the value of the property fronting on Mason street was about $12 a front foot; and he further testified, in effect, that the only way to subdivide the block for residence purposes would be to lay off two lots of fifty-foot front on Mason street, extending through the tract, and to subdivide the balance of the quarter block into three lots of fifty and one of seventy-five feet fronting on Anacapa street; that, after the taking of the land sought to be condemned, the block could be subdivided only into the four lots fronting on Anacapa street; that in the former case the land would be worth $4,500 and in the latter $3,500 only; and that the balance of the land not taken by the plaintiff would thus be…