Posted on 06/23/2005 8:07:27 AM PDT by Stew Padasso
Supreme Court rules cities may seize homes
HOPE YEN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A divided Supreme Court ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth conflicts with individual property rights.
Thursday's 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.
As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.
Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.
"The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including - but by no means limited to - new jobs and increased tax revenue," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."
Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.
New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.
The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.
"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."
She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned in recent years, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the New London homeowners.
New London, a town of less than 26,000, once was a center of the whaling industry and later became a manufacturing hub. More recently the city has suffered the kind of economic woes afflicting urban areas across the country, with losses of residents and jobs.
The New London neighborhood that will be swept away includes Victorian-era houses and small businesses that in some instances have been owned by several generations of families. Among the New London residents in the case is a couple in their 80s who have lived in the same home for more than 50 years.
City officials envision a commercial development that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.
New London was backed in its appeal by the National League of Cities, which argued that a city's eminent domain power was critical to spurring urban renewal with development projects such Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Kansas City's Kansas Speedway.
Under the ruling, residents still will be entitled to "just compensation" for their homes as provided under the Fifth Amendment. However, Kelo and the other homeowners had refused to move at any price, calling it an unjustified taking of their property.
The case is Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108.
Do you live in MONTGOMERGY Co. cuz it describes what's going on here to the "T" LOL
Where do I sign up?
Time for peasants with pitchforks.
Impeach the Supreme Court.
Term limit the Men in Black (and that goes for you, RBG!!!)
Ya THINK?
"So if a private individual or company can make a case for the city getting more benefit (through tax revenue) for the latest in health spa design, they can snag your land to do it."
Yep, and the highest court in the land just gave this shady practice a stamp of approval.
But please don't mess with a snail darter's (whatever that is)habitat.
Where do we start dumping the tea?
Welcome to Canada lite. This has already been in place in Canada for decades. My grandfather was a self made real estate developer. He was doing great in the '60s (political and social situations aside) and had planned to build a new town, a new supersuburb, with a few other developers, just north of Toronto (where Vaughn and Markham are now, for those of you familiar with Toronto). They lost a bundle when the government seized the land, paid them a fraction (I think it was about 15%) of what it was worth, to build an airport, which they never actually even finished.
Its a scary place. Might be too late for us, but you guys have got to reverse that decision. That is tyranny. It overrides your right to your own property. And if you lose that, then soon you lose your rights to complain about (1st amendment), fight for it, (2nd amendment), etc. etc.
The flies in the face of the DUmmieland belief that it is the conservatives who are the Fascists. It was clearly the Fascists (read liberal lefties) who did this.
Now what does that matter? Most northerners weren't affected by slavery either.
LOL! Now those critters have property rights.
I'm sick of this bullshit government. It just never stops being tyrannical.
This is basically a declaration of war against private property. Any and all property may be taken to give the property to a corporation, person of influence, or for any other reason so long as the government can say it is for economic reasons.
"Eminient domain" is now defined as economic or tax purposes, not rights of way.
Excellent summary!
It's been happening here in my little town in NJ. Local council sends a newsletter around, and a few years ago there was one paragraph that caught my attention: "A developer has agreed to put a shopping center at the corner of such-and-such. The property owner is being uncooperative, so we will be using public domain..." They just came right out and put it in writing.
As if the property restrictions and costs aren't enough.
The difference with non-payment of property taxes, is the city/county places the property up for auction, people bid on the property and the winner gets the property. You get back the difference between taxes owed and the winning bid. Here one entity gets to decided the price, and you have to take it.
Excuse me?
OK...now I get it.
NOW I'm upset.
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