At issue is whether governments can forcibly seize homes and businesses, for private economic development.

...and the answer is usually 'yes'. It happens a lot when sports stadiums are built- any owners who refuse to sell have their land siezed via eminent domain.

I don't like how it works now, but I'd be okay with it so long as the landowner recieved 300% of the assessed value of the land siezed, tax-free.

TO: Stephen Green
RE: We've Really Got TROUBLE....

...with a capitol "T" and that rhymes with "E" and that stands for "Eminent Domain".

Where is Robert Preston when we REALLY need him.

We've got that problem here in Pueblo. There's a certain 'industry' that we think covets certain lands near where I live.

One particular agency in that venue has already bulldozed an historic building, on the eve of it being declared an historic landmark, in order to put in a, believe it or not, 'parking lot'. [Note: Can we get Joni Mitchell in town to do a concert for the 2005 State Fair? Raze Thatcher House, put in a parking lot. Oooooh. La. La. La. La.....]

Regards,

Chuck(le)
P.S. I'm looking for a smart kid with moxie at computer animation to do a 10-second modified out-take of the 1930s King Kong, with the title star knocking down Thatcher House, like he did that eleveated rail in NYC, to the tune of Queen's Rock You. BOOM! BOOM! with each fist hit by the big guy.

P.P.S. The real challenge will be to put Kong into a sweatshirt with the company's logo on it.

rosignol - I think that your suggested solution to this issue would would only end up leading to massive scam jobs by developers and their political allies.
The "Eminent Domain" issue has been argued about for hundreds of years without a solution agreeable to all emerging. Clearly, one never will.

Funny thing is, the Poletown case from Michigan (decades ago), which basically started this "any purpose is ok for eminent domain" was repudiated late last year in Michigan. Let's hope the US S.Ct. gets it right.

Worst thing is, the localities usually don't even get any tax money, either. They usually provide a "tax incentive" to the business which is coming in.

This is a good remedy for the Conservative thinking that local governments are preferable to far away ones. Local governments are at least as corrupt as state or federal government. And it is also a corrective to the idea that businesses are the good guys. They use the muscle of local government to get what they want on the cheap whenever they can.

This does have to be stopped. It is a very severe abuse of government power.

rosignol - I think that your suggested solution to this issue would would only end up leading to massive scam jobs by developers and their political allies.

Possibly. The idea is that using eminent domain should 1) be expensive enough that the pols will be held accountable for using it, and 2) won't screw the landowner.

A lot of the businesses that are displaced when land is siezed for a new stadium don't survive the move. That kills jobs, and I want to be sure that the business owner will be able to re-establish the business elsewhere. As far as sweetheart deals with developers are concerned, it should be the city or county government that does the buyout, not the state gov't.

There are actually two Takings cases being argued tomorrow. The second, Lingle v. Chevron, is trying to fight permanent (as opposed to "temporary") rent control as a regulatory "taking" that should require "just compensation."

"Possibly. The idea is that using eminent domain should 1) be expensive enough that the pols will be held accountable for using it, and 2) won't screw the landowner."

If the landowner doesn't want to move, or sell, they're screwed regardless.

Norwood, Ohio recently declared an entire neighborhood 'blighted' so that they could build a mall. They displaced hundreds of people so that Cincinnati could have another Baby Gap, or some such.

I think that changing the law to make eminent domain more painful will have little effect on those determined to ignore the current laws and seize property for any profitable reason. 300% of the assessed value? Well, shoot, I guess the assessed value was much less than we thought, after all...

I agree that ways to fight them must cost them either their money or their jobs (preferably both). So we're reduced to suing them, like many of the Norwood residents, or pledging to avoid their stores, or voting them out of office.

Not very good options, in my opinion.

-S

make it the greater of 300% of assessed value over past 3 years or 300% of market transactions over past 3 years that did not involve some relationship to the developers...

and make sure that eminent domain purchases come out of the wages and budgets of the pols, then of city workers, before anything else...

There are two related issues, or at least close enough together they shouldn't be confused with one another.

First is eminent domain. We need a Constitutional amendment. Using ED for non-essentials is at least as bad as being forced to board Redcoats in your home.

Unless the ED is for a government building, critical infrastructure (electricity, water, communication), or certain geography-critical private businesses (hospitals, not sports stadiums) it should be unconstitutional.

The other issue is planning and zoning. A business gets a permit to build, say, a parking garage. They go through all the procedures, pay all the fees, and meet all the local requirements.

Then when it comes time to build some local citizen's group pressures the city government into stopping construction. Not having a real legal basis for doing this, they invent one, which ties the business and the city up in court for years, costing everyone except the lawyers lots of money.

I'm not sure what the solution to the second problem is, but any solution to the first problem must carefully avoid causing even more of the second.

I completely agree with you Stephen. And ironically often times the city councils are simply bamboozled by the developers and companies that want the land, and the city doesn't even reap any real return from stealing (err "taking") the land from its previous owners.

I haven't followed this case at all, but I will definitely read up on all the briefing and post something (hopefully soon) on my blog.

From the CNN report the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing the Connecticut Supreme Court's opinion that favored the city, and allowed the use of eminent domain. That is a good sign, as generally the U.S. Supreme Court takes cases from state supreme courts to reverse them.

Hopefully they will do that here too.

Rosignol's suggestion has one fatal flaw. The agency that accesses the value of the property belongs to the same governmental entity that wants to seize the land. e.g. the city usually, sometimes the county or the state.

If you don't think that there is any collusion to stiff the owners, I say think again. Forcing unwilling folks off of their property usually involves condemning it. Top dollar for condemned property is unusual to say the least.

It has been my experience that corruption is the worst at the municipal and county level.

In my humble opinion, which along with one dollar will get you a cup of coffee, the best way to deal with this is to very strictly define exactly what the "greater public good" is.

Public good, until the 80's was usually construed to mean bridges, roadways and publicly owned structures. Eminent domain was not intended for to transfer private property to other private parties for private gain. Even if the private development brought additional tax revenues.

Seizing people's homes or businesses to make space for private development is (again, in my opinion) illegal and unethical and is a growing problem that could potentially affect any of us.

There, now I can get off my soapbox.

I think the discussion of monetary compensation is kind of missing the big picture. It's one thing to say "well, we'll just pay them a lot", but it's still a forced transaction made for the benefit of a private company. It's a violation of their liberty. What if the government decided to take your house and pay you 3 times the value? You might not mind that much, but someone else in the same situation very well could. What if the government took your dog and gave you 3 times the appraised dog value? I am sure everyone has something they own that has sentimental value, and that if you were forced by the government to sell it would upset you.

Well, here's the thing- assessed value is what property taxes are based on, and the assessment is done once a decade around here (yeah, I know...). If the local gov't starts lowballing assessed property values, it'll be shooting itself in the foot on property tax revenues, and I'd be very surprised if the assessor's office didn't already have legal safeguards against undue influence in property value assessments.

The fight about eminent domain looks to be proceeding towards the side of homeowners. Governments have abused this power for years, but it looks as if courts will finally stop it.

I wonder how many homes are seized in places where there is high gun control? Something makes me think that ED isn't used in places where the populace is heavily armed.

Depends on what you mean by 'heavily armed'. Generally speaking, eminent domain is used in urban areas, and urban types tend not to have as many firearms as people who live where the nearest cop might be ~30 miles away at any given time.

My solution to this sort of problem is a step beyond rosignol's:

Once the scope of the eminent domain taking is established, and all the contracts with the people who are taking the property signed, the Mayor, City Manager, and City Council will be executed by firing squad. After which the taking proceeds.

Hey, if they're really serious about it benefitting the body politic, they'll go for the sacrifice, no?

Regards,
Ric

Hmmm.

The problem with ED is the same problem with "diversity" and with Forfeiture. They were all approved by activist judges who were trying to provide judgements for the "greater good" rather than an actual accurate interpretation of the law. And every time they do this nonsense, it turns into a pile of crap.

The simple fact is that the current interpretation of ED should never have come to pass. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now.

Now if they'd do something about Forfeiture. now that is a crime!

I believe some version of ED is necessary for vital projects, and it is a well-established and time-honored legal exercise.

The issue is the abuse of ED by some authorities, that abuse growing more egregious every decade. As some suggest we could more strictly define when ED is acceptable, but I'd be concerned that such definitions could themselves be abused in individual cases.

I hesitate to suggest new bureaucracies, but what if we had a federal statute that required any exercise of ED be reviewed by a state committee - with the potential for appeal to federal? Might that help?

My assumption is that the definition of "the public good" would not be subject to capricious or corrupt local officials, if subjected to higher-level review.

BAck in the mid-90's in Birmingham, Alabama the University of Alabama Birmingham wanted to raze a block of buisnises in order to build some new clinics. At first glance this seems reasonable. In digging out the whole story, the Birmingham News found out the City condemned all the property because of the increased tax revenue it would receive. The Alabama Supreme Court found in favor of the property owners. The Supreme Court ruled that a municipality can not invoke Eminant Domain solely for the purpose of increasing tax revenue, that property owners rights come first. The big deal was that some of the buisineses had been there for as long as 50 years.

There is a little more to this than just 'eminant domain is bad'.

In Cincinnnati we have a proposed development where 61 of the 66 properties that were needed for a development were purchased from the owners for significantly above market value. 5 owners sued for eminant domain abuse. While I support these individuals rights to their property, what about the other 61 families that were held hostage because they wanted to sell and move on? While the current system may be out of control, there must be a balance to prevent 1 or 2 people from determining the fates of significant numbers of other property owners.

The assessed value of the property in the building I live i is ~15000 dollars per 650 square foot unit.

The market value just hit 380K per unit last month.

What makes a fair buyout price? 45k?

Aaron,

So if 11/12 neighbors on my block suddenly decide to sell their houses to Walmart for a new store(no ED issue) and I don't, should I suck it up and sell so they can "move on"? How about 6/12? It's a ridiculous statement. If those people want to sell their houses good on 'em. They have no more right to force me out of my house than I have to prevent them from selling theirs. Do you remember the old "block-busting" lawsuits? The ones that tried to prevent home sales to black families because they would "hurt propery values". They failed based on the same principle -- my house, my decision, see ya, bye.

The issue of eminent domain is hot in Seattle as they try and build a monorail system up here. There are rumblings that people could be forced from their properties if they don't sell them. Saw it on King 5 news just last night.

Seattle (or rather, rural areas of King County) are facing another ED issue, though its not quite labeled as such. The county wants to designate 65% of a landowner's property as "critical area", meaning it has to be left in a natural state. No weeding, trimming, cutting, building. The owner cannot do anything with that part of his land.

I think that the one thing that Aaron and others have neglected to touch upon is that often the studies that result in the "blighted" label on the desired properties are funded by either the city government (who wants the outcome to go a certain way) or in another case in Cincinnati, was funded by a developer who has an interest in getting their hands on the property (Reading Rd corridor, for those familiar). Either is a conflict of interest, IMO. If there is a conflict and a study is necessary to determine blight for an eminent domain issue, then I think there also needs to be some rules and guidlines as to who sets up that study (and pays for it). One of the defenses that the Norwood, Ohio people put up is, of course, thier own study on the definition of "blight", which, of course, contradicted the city's report.

On another note, as far as zoning goes, my family and our neighbors just went through the municiple "hell" with zoning. The Township where our 25 acre working farm is located (along with several others) in a 1 mile stip on ONE SIDE of the road just got re-zoned "light industrial". Other side of the road, with the 2 new subdivision of $180K houses, stayed residential. And my dad used to sit on the township zoning board!!

Rather than 300% of the assessed property value, make it so that any taxes (sales, local, federal, etc) obtained by use of property seized by ED goes to the people whos land was taken for ten-fifteen years. That gets around the lowballing of values, and also makes the 'increased tax revenue' arguement false, since it would actually cause a decrease in tax revenue for that period since the taxes aren't going to the city, they are going to the prior owners, the city gets to eat the loss. In the case of truly public places (Libraries, roads, etc.) taxes aren't usually assessed on those lands anyways, so the expenses would be the same.

Works for me. I'm happy with a solution that 1) allows ED to happen when it is truly *necessary*, 2) benefits the displaced owners, and 3) creates disincentives for the local gov't to pull shennanigans and abuse it's authority.

All Eminent Domain takings should give the original/previous owner the right of first-refusal to repurchase the property for the same price he/she was given when it was taken, should the government decide to relinquish use and/or ownership.

Under this arrangement, the silly political musings of state and local governments would come to an end, the original/previous owner would have tremendous leverage with potential new owners, and legitimate public usage would be unaffected.

Someone above said "[l]ocal governments are at least as corrupt as state or federal government." Local governments are utterly corrupt. They are typically run as old boy networks by people who grew up in the town and never left it and like to do favors for one another.

In the town I grew up in, they recently proposed a new sewer line capable of handling industrial output in an undeveloped outlying area, which they zoned as industrial and claimed they were laying the groundwork for future industry. Properties were seized under ED. The kicker? The area is a freaking swamp that no company with a moiety of sense would ever seek to build on. But, the construction budget was about 10X greater than it should have been. If you guessed that the county supervisor has a brother in the construction business, go to the head of the class.

Aaron,

Scenarios similar to that are the reason that our Founding Fathers had a fear of the idea of "Majority Rules." I don't care if the ratio's 2/3, 3/4, 4/5, or 999,999/1,000,000 -- the majority cannot simply ignore the property rights of the minority just because they want to make lots of money.

The 'one' isn't holding anyone hostage -- every single one of those other individuals is free to sell their homes. Likely, they'll get less money than they would otherwise, but they can still sell.

Rights (including property rights) are there to prevent the majority from taking advantage of the minority. If 999,999 people were disgusted that one person expressed an unpopular idea, they can't violate his right to free speech. This is the same thing.