posted
I just found out the other day what eminent domain is. I can understand why the government would use it, but only in special situations. For example: keeping someone from getting a hold of a lot of land in a specific area, and holding it to raise prices, or trying to get a monopoly on it.
In another not so bad story about eminent domain, my city tried to do this to a bunch of people's homes when they were planning to rebuild the local freeway interchange. There was a huge protest and whatnot...eventually forcing the city to change the cloverleaf they had originally planned to build to a more house friendly interchange. Not one private house was torn down.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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The St. Louis airport actually resides in St. Louis County.
St. Louis City does not reside in St. Louis County. The Seceded 100 years ago because the then prosperous city didn't want to be drug down by the poor country folk.
Now the oppisitte situation is at hand, but that is a different story.
When TWA was going great, the City of St. Louis decided that the St. Louis Airport needed to be expanded to insure that St. Louis remains a viable option for corporate America. Since the city actually owns a large part of the airport, even though it sits in the county, they decided to expand.
The expansion would cover 2/3rds of one suburban town, and large chuncks of other small towns. Needless to say, those involved, and those who would find their property devalued by beind under the new runway's noise area, put up a fight.
The city, with help from county officials, pulled out eminent domain and basically bulldozed over large neighborhoods.
People lost their homes. Complaints ran rampant. Law suits filled the courts. Several environmental groups came up with alternative, less expensive plans.
The city and county pushed on through.
Now the expansion is half way done.
TWA went bust.
American Airlines bought them out, but they closed the St. Louis hub.
Flights from St. Louis are about 1/2 what they were 5 years ago.
And the contstruction and buy outs go on.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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It should be interesting. Eminent domain is dealt with in the final clause of the Fifth Amendment: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
There are traditionally three issues with eminent domain: 1. What is a taking? 2. What is just compensation? 3. For what uses may land be taken?
The first has been well dealt with in the courts. The classic form of taking is just that - the government takes ownership from the previous owner. The second form is related, in which the government forces the owner to accept an intrusion upon the land. For example, beachfront property often carries with it a required easement to allow the public to access the beach. Or, the government puts up a dam which floods the property. The classic criteria for this form of taking is whether or not the intrusion would amount to trespass. The final form is called a regulatory taking, in which the government restricts the uses of the land to such a degree that it is rendered essentially worthless. The case law on this is much less clear, but there are limits on what governments can do without compensating. The clearest cases are those when the government says no improvements may be made on the land and there is no profitable unimproved use of the land. This area is ripe for future litigation.
The second question is simple in principle: just compensation is what a willing buyer would pay to a willing seller. Putting it into practice is much more difficult, as is appropriating the compensation across various stakeholders (tenants, fee owners, etc.). With residential houses, this is probably not too complicated, though.
There is very little case law on the final question, and it is complicated by the fact that state Constitutions often have the same language that is interpreted as providing more protection by state high courts. State courts cannot give less protection than SCOTUS requires, though.
This all depends on how "Public Use" is defined. Private property rights have received little protection from the court since the depression, although that is starting to change some. It will be interesting to see what the test is that SCOTUS decides to use.
posted
There was a somewhat similar situation in the town I lived in a few years back. The town wanted to redevelop and improve the west end of the downtown area. They pulled an ED move on 6 businesses and the residents of the apartments above those businesses in order to build a large condo complex, a riverwalk, and a park. Now, I have to say that from my perspective, living a few blocks away from the area being claimed under ED, and having to walk through that area on a daily basis to get to and fron work, that I fully agreed with the town's decision that this area needed significant work and that the town in general needed more residential options than already available. The businesses involved were barely surviving - or so they claimed in their dispute over "fair compensation" - and so their contribution to taxes for schools and libraries and so on were deemed to be quite a bit less than the taxes generated by the owners of the condos that would be going up in their place.
The business owners apparently didn't mind being taken out, it was solely the money that they were complaining about. A gas station with a published annual sales of just under a half million was demanding more than 10 times that for the property. The camera store, which had already posted "going out of business" signs before the take was announced, wanted free relocation into the central business district, including no rent for several years.
I moved out in the middle of all this so I don't know what ever came of it. I do know that one of the condo buildings was under construction last time I drove through that area, though, over a year ago.
I think what's happening to these families in Lakewood really stinks and I hope they can successfully fight against City Hall.
posted
There was a weird case when then Fred Meyer/Kroger decided to buy up a block in Salt Lake. One house was spared. They put up a retaining wall around it and built the shopping center. I don't know if that one family mounted a lawsuit or what, but it was like in Bugs Bunny where they build the office building around his hole.
But after several years that house was put up for lease, and then later torn down and the lot is now being offered as Prime/PAD.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
that is terrible...I have never been all that fond of ED, but for the government to use it to take private property and give it to another private owner is nuts.
The comments by the ACE hardware guy trying to use ED to take someone's store was just nuts. He sounded like he wanted to live in some sort of Facist country where the government would just muscle people out of the way.
As for the new york times, they should be ashamed. Of all things the newspaper should know better than to turn on people like that.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
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posted
I can remember a while back when the government bought part of people's property so they could widen a major road. That's reasonable.
But this is crazy. Trying to take someone's property so they can "improve" the area, and...*shudder*...raise taxes! And then let a private builder, or another store buy the land. That's wrong. Posts: 4174 | Registered: Sep 2003
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