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.
See my post #417; that's a very real possibility in my neighborhood. I get cash offers for my house from property agents, and now they'll just start getting out their maps, looking at the areas they want to develop, and go to the city with proposals that have a "public purpose" glued-on somewhere. They'll be able to buy up whole neighborhoods and force out long-time residents.
BOHICA
[Bend Over, Here It comes Again]
#^&$%*@$ And I was having such a nice day.
It aint over by a long shot. They just need to keep this crap up, and royally piss off the American people. They are one judicial appointement away from eternity, and one amendment away from being told to go to hell. It aint time to play Cowboys and Justices yet.
to early? Just about time.
What are we going to do about this? What can we do?
I'll tell you, I'll be first in line for a campaign to get a Constitutional amendment reversing this absolute garbage. I hope this turns into a full-fledged movement. We need web sites, email petitions to senators and congressmen, everything. This issue affects everybody. Not just homeowners, but those who care about the neighborhoods and cities they live in, and have an interest in individual rights (or the erosion thereof).
I think most Dems and the media will support this even if it is beneficial for developers. In the end, the cities will call the shots and the developers will have to do their bidding. This increases the power of government, and the Democrats are never against strengthening government unless it involves fighting terrorists and criminals. The city of Seattle has had major redevelopment schemes turned down by the voters; now, there's one less obstacle.
For all his faults, the only radio personality who has been right on this all along is Alex Jones.
You know, the track record for "redevelopments" in "blighted" areas such as this is not really very good. With any luck, the greedy developers that get these people's properties will lose their shirts.
Exactly right. Hey, if the house is 'condemned,' then let's condemn the whole property. Salt the earth, as they say. This is criminal. A very sad day for our court and our country.
From the Fith Amendment: "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
The Supremes have affirmed that "public use" is an unqualified term in the context of the amendment and, therefore, anyone seeking to take land needs no qualifiers as long as they can make a claim to "public use", however tenuous.
I take this opportunity to point out that "just compensation" is a likewise unqualified term in the context of the same amendment and, therefore, anyone having their property taken has every iota of freedom to define "just compensation" as the freedom the Court has now affirmed for defining the term "public use".
ping for later.
Do not forget, that when the railroads first went through, they (the robber barons) and the lumber mills they owned, received one square mile of land on either side of the tracks as far as the tracks ran.
Second Amendment bump
Yup
ping
Take a look at Free Republic now. There are more entries and interest in the father in Aruba than the stealing of our rights to own property.
Eminent domain has long been a staple between wink-wink politicians and developers in New Jersey. Happens all the time, and zoning laws and planning boards are apparently only for the suckers who didn't make huge donations to whatever party is in power. (Where I live, it's Democrats, but NJ is the breeding ground of RINO republicans, who are just as guilty.)
I'm guaranteeing that some politician or developer who has a real grudge against someone will use this law to get at them. What could scare you more than to suddenly find your house is needed by the govt on behalf of a developer? What would make you shut up faster? The threat, for a lot of people, would scare the hell out of them.
IMHO, this insane scotus ruling has opened the door to corruption the likes of which we've never seen. The same govt that uses your tax money to take your property will now do it on behalf of a developer who gives big bucks to the polls on the books (and kickbacks behind the scenes.)
Anyone interested in a good read on the disaster of eminent domain should read "Abuse of Power: How the Government Misuses Eminent Domain" by Steven Greenhut.
Before this ruling, this book would curl your hair. The mind boggles at what the pols and developers will do now that scotus has handed the inmates the asylum keys.
I saw that. I guess it means that Coatesville will be able to buy a golf course.
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