Question: The city wants to extend a road through your property, right through a corner where several key buildings are located. What do you do?

(a) Put up a fight.

(b) Sell the city the land, and use the proceeds as seed money to build a new facility on your remaining property.

Santa Maria-based VTC Enterprises opted for the latter. When the nonprofit, which teaches vocational life skills to people with severe mental disabilities, was told that the city planned to extend a road through its property, it turned what could have been a major blow into an opportunity.

The full version of this column is only available in the print edition. To view everything the Business Times offers, see this week’s print version or SUBSCRIBE to the print edition for $49.99 today.