Posted on 07/18/2005 5:37:52 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Last month the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Connecticut case of Kelo vs. New London, gave local governments the power to seize the homes of property owners and give the land to private companies. Florida Attorney General Charles Crist and other sources have been quoted as saying that Floridians don’t have to worry about this decision because state law provides greater protection for private-property owners than the U.S. Constitution or Connecticut law. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
Florida’s Community Redevelopment Act that allows “blighted” areas to be condemned by local governments under eminent domain gives public entities unbridled discretion in making a determination of blight. This determination forms the basis for a local government to declare a legitimate public purpose to condemn your home as it sees fit. In fact, in Florida, it’s just as easy to kick you out of your home as it is in Connecticut.
To declare an area blighted, a local government only needs to find that two of 13 statutory factors are present. These include such subjective areas as inadequate street layout, property assessments that have failed to show appreciable increases over five years, faulty lot layout, diversity of ownership and emergency medical-service calls proportionately higher than the rest of the community, to name a few.
It’s easy for any local government intent on redevelopment to find two such factors, declare blight and condemn your home or business property without proving any other legitimate public use. Eminent-domain abuse has been occurring in Florida long before Susette Kelo received her condemnation notice from the city of New Haven.
Redevelopment plans are being approved, and eminent-domain proceedings initiated in growing numbers throughout Florida. The most blatant examples of eminent domain abuse are described in the Institute for Justice study entitled Public Power, Private Gain. The Florida local government players depicted in the study include the cities of Boynton Beach, Daytona Beach, Jacksonville Beach, Riviera Beach and West Palm Beach.
In Charlotte County, some 1,100 acres of land, known as the West Murdock Area, are sought by the County Commission for redevelopment by a private (for profit) corporation — just as in the Kelo case. Under the county’s plan, there would be no public ownership, no residual public control and no public use of the acquired land. The end use will be for a private development.
The proposal for the new Murdock Village calls for more than 3,300 residential units, no affordable housing and nearly 1.2 million square feet of private commercial development. Key to the redevelopment plan are both the county’s delivery of a large assembled land unit and the ability of the developer to utilize tax-increment financing, provided for under the CRA. Murdock Village has been described as ‘’one of the more aggressive situations in the state’‘ when it comes to the use of eminent domain for economic development. It is a poster child for the need to establish limits on government’s ability to seize private property to benefit other private parties.
Florida’s open-ended ‘’slum and blight’‘ definition paves the way for virtually any private property in the state to be condemned in the name of ‘’public benefit.’‘ As a result, local governments routinely confiscate private homes and small businesses for redistribution to politically connected, well-heeled companies that use these displaced people’s property for their own profit.
Over the years, the Florida Legislature has statutorily expanded “public use” to include more and more justifications for takings. For Crist’s statement about the status of property rights in Florida to be accurate, the Community Redevelopment Act must be tightened. Unless the Legislature assumes its role of preserving private-property rights, we Floridians could easily find ourselves in the same sad position as Kelo.
Valerie A. Fernández is the managing attorney of Pacific Legal Foundation’s Atlantic Center in Coral Gables. This commentary appeared in the July 15 issue of the Miami Herald
This is why the second ammendment was created.
There is no longer such a thing as government of the people by the people and for the people. Over the week-end I was reading about Oliver Cromwell and it struck me as ironic that one of the charges against King Charles that led to his beheading was that the crown confiscated people's land for the good of the government. Enough said...
There is no longer such a thing as government of the people by the people and for the people.
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How long will it take for people to figure it out? I did, twenty years ago.
They've sold out the entire nation. No point in worrying about your house.
Hollywood, Broward County, Fla has used Eminent Domain twice in the last month, while it had only used it twice in the last 30 some-odd years.
Coincidence?
Time to catalog all those ED projects and boycot them, see how far "tax revenues" will get them!!!
Florida tried this last year too.
Florida tried this last year too.
People are too stupid to care, or even pay attention.
I would be very wary of building a new church, or going into a long term lease on retail space, because at any moment some Gov't Official might deem the property more valuable than what it currently is, and sell it to a developer.
Bump!
Thanks. Good rant. Good ideas.
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