Eminent domain... I am sure we have all heard the rash of stories about how local municipalities are condemning private homes in order to make way for new private economic development. Whether it be shopping malls or condos, the rationale for seizure of private property for private economic development is valid. It draws new business, raises property taxes and revenue which pays for schools, police, fire departments. And, it is usually only a small portion of the community that pays the price for the benefit of everyone else overall. How else can a local municipality revitalize towns falling into slow economic ruin.
But, is this what America is really about. It is one of our most cherished values - the right to own our own land without unreasonable interference. And the Americans who bear the brunt of this growing trend is usually hard working lower middle class and lower class citizens. First, the government paved over their houses with freeways. That, at least, was truly public use. Now, we are trying to take their homes so someone else can make money. This, even with the economic benefits it brings the rest of the community is somehow just plain wrong and has gone too far. Where will this end? And is anyone safe? A man's home is his castle and should be treated as such.
Court to Hear Battle Over Eminent Domain
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Residents trying to hang onto their homes in a working class neighborhood of New London, Conn., are waging a battle in the Supreme Court over their city government's attempt to seize property for private economic development.
Susette Kelo and several other homeowners filed a lawsuit after city officials announced plans to bulldoze their residences to clear the way for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices. The residents refused to move, arguing it was an unconstitutional taking of their property.
The case's outcome will have significant implications for so-called eminent domain actions.
There have been over 10,000 instances in recent years of private property being threatened with condemnation or actually condemned by government for private use, according to the Institute for Justice. The group represents the New London residents who filed the case.
The issue revolves around whether a government is serving a public purpose when it uses its power of eminent domain to take land. The Fifth Amendment prohibits taking private property for public use without just compensation. The New London case is not about the amount of compensation being offered, but whether the government can take the property at all.
Over the years, the Supreme Court has deferred to the decision-making of elected state and local officials.
The court said in 1954 that it is legal for urban renewal to encompass non-blighted commercial buildings in a blighted neighborhood. In 1984, the court upheld Hawaii's land reform law that broke the grip of large landowners, with property being taken and then resold to others.
More recently, many cities and towns have been accused of abusing their authority, razing nice homes to make way for parking lots for casinos and other tax-producing businesses.
(Full Story)
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4 comments:
I couldn't agree more.
I bow before your wisdom.
Another way to look at this is that it is usually the lower-end neighborhoods which are targeted because they're less expensive. This, in my opinion, is really an abuse of power.
Even when government takes for a road or other public works project, I believe it should be done so as to minimize the impact. But to take private property for private use is to enshrine the power of money, and that is the opposite of what America should be about.
Excellent, excellent, excellent.
Short sweet and to the point. It is precisely the blurred line between the scared and the profane that allows for these matters to be considered business as usual in so many locales.
To exert the laws of Eminent Domain, in the ways you describe, are antithetical to what we believe in. Indeed, one might say this is another form of taxation without representation- that the state need not hold private property rights as sacred and can indeed dole private property to another, more 'loyal' or 'favored' subject- and that can lead to no good.
I have to agree with S,C&A on this one: that it is a form of taxation without representation. The reasoning that it provides for the public through taxes is pretty thin, since it mostly benefits the few and the rich, and leaves the common man without recourse.
In arguing that private property has no protection against confiscation for a "public good" how is this different from Communism? I think this issue has lost its proper 'tests' to ensure individual rights. And unscrupulous developers are mining it for all it's worth.
Perhaps we are now paying the hidden costs in the free lunches that we as the public have gotten used to... ?
I am very concerned about this problem created by the growing use and abuse of eminent domwin rulings.
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