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.
O'Reilly didn't even know what it is. Someone called in and O'Reilly just said, "what is this imminent domain thing about, anyway?"
And that was pretty much it.
Makes me sick. These guys don't even know when a huge issue like this hits us all in the face. They're still talking about the flag.
Doesn't matter much if you don't even have a house at which to fly your flag!!!
Well, then your point is wrong. It is theft at the point of a gun. In this particular case the State holds the gun to the head of certain property owners for self aggrandizement and the profit of wannabe property owners with more bucks.
It is theft, pure and simple but it is the worst kind of theft, namely fascism.
For the time being. That right of free speech may be curtailed sometime soon.
The game today is played on two levels. If a conviction cannot be obtained at the local level, one can always be sought in the federal courts.
Semper Fi
Very well put but I think it goes back further than that. I believe we can trace encroachments of this sort all the way back to the founding of the Tennessee Valley Authority. And many other 'New Deal' ideals.
Get to know the members on your local Zoning Board. If you live in an area that you suspect may be a gleam in some developer's eye...they could be your best friends.
lol didnt you get that memo? Everything is to do with the chinese nowadays
A real scary thing is that your posession of your house and property may come down to the good will or honorabilty of a few polititians.
What is next for this type of ruling?
How far can politicians push this ruling, is there any limits to it?
Well, I am sure if Homer Simpson's home was threatened, he would accidently come home with a little nuclear material and somehow place it hidden in the area for the next landlord's ingestion. Can you say, Love Canal?? Not that I am suggesting anything of course....
Sure makes me want to get a big ole mortgage on my little ole place, more than I need - bank the money and pay as little on that ole house as I could.
I think a big bank would not like it if their property was taken from them!
Not much like the American dream, is it!!!!
I'm sure some of them own houses too. They can see the writing on the wall. When DU and FR actually agree, something is COMPLETELY wrong.
You're absolutely right.
He knows. But he (and the rest of his ilk) are disinformationists who serve to deflect the public from inflammatory issues.
Tony Snow is even worse.
Their function is to help make sure the pot doesn't boil over.
They are simply quislings for the elite.
I'm kind of vulnerable where I am; there's been a lot of infilling in my area, and I bet a lot of developers would like to grab my neighborhood and divvy up the lots to build townhouses and such. Before this ruling, they would have to buy out each owner individually. Now, they can go to the city and propose some scheme that has an ostensible "public purpose" and force us all out of our homes.
Welcome to the USSA bump.
That thought has crossed my mind a few times. O'Reilly and all of those guys have several staff members each, all of them combing the internet, discussion sites, newspapers, etc. There is no way he doesn't realize what this ruling is about. I was shocked when the caller (at about 1:30 or later) mentioned this and O'Reilly said he knew nothing about it.. asked what it was.
These guys.. I think you might be right. In fact, my friend at work mentioned that this might be a 'testing ground' of sorts by SCOTUS a(and others) to see just exactly how people will react. How can you make a ruling that be so unpopular with just about EVERYBODY, repubs and dems alike (developers notwithstanding, I suppose.. nor city officials).
It's really sick. They are probably expecting people will just shut up and swallow it. Many probably will. It's for the 'greater good,' don't ya know? Sickening..
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