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.
What are the chances of taking some kind of economic action against companies that avail themselves of this ruling?
If we're lucky, the county will soon be able to seize our cars for use as "official vehicles". Come to think of it, perhaps the government will be able to argue that they can make better use of our bank accounts than we do. After all, these things are just other forms of property and the government knows what's best for the "common good".
This is so wrong. It is absolutely wrong, wrong, wrong!
Locke's discussion on the right not to have property taken away being a corollary to and necessary to liberty rather than slavery has been thrown out of the law in the United States of America.
Of course, local law can be changed - easier than Federal law. But, I can't believe the audacity - the highhandedness of this Supreme Court.
Does this surprise you?
Our nation sleeps!
The organization doing this is the California Coastal Commission - Do a search on "California Coastal Commission" and "land grab"
Plenty of good reading......
California Coastal Commission Still Calling Shots
The California Coastal Commission is up to its old tricks again now that it is back in business after the state legislature provided a “fix” to the court declaring it unconstitutional. [snip]
The Coastal Commission has long been criticized for its political leanings; in 1987 the U.S. Supreme Court “described its demands for land in exchange for permits as an out-and-out plan of extortion.”
And a few years ago, the San Francisco Chronicle reported “that Gov. Davis’ re-election campaign received $8.3 million from donors with business before the Coastal Commission.” Most of the donors got their permits.
Coastal improvement projects conducted by private entities have proven quite successful in other states, but the record of the CCC indicates there is little reason to believe private industries in California will get the chance to prove their abilities.
ALSO:
Pacific Legal Foundation’s Coastal Land Rights Project
The California Coastal Commission repeatedly exceeds its authority and represents a dangerous threat to property owners within the state’s coastal zone. This state agency:
* is notorious for its regulatory high handedness and arbitrary treatment of property owners;
* forces cities and counties to put all sorts of objectionable items into their local coastal plans;
* is infamous for micromanaging landowners—even dictating the type of plants they may put in their gardens and the number of parking spaces they may have;
* disregards constitutionally protected private property rights.
So sad, trully sad.
I wonder what "we, the people" can do? I wonder if it would be appropriate to pass an Amendment to the Constitution?
Why do we have to pass Amendments to un-do what the Supreme Court rules???
"IMO, this is where the amendment process is necessary. The Constitution needs to clearly protect private property rights."
The Constitution already makes it clear (to anyone with any sense, which these justices simply do not have).
There are many other things that are very clear in that great document too. This has never stopped them before!
The final piece of the Constitution has been put in the shredder!
"You will make a very fine serf."
I don't know if the person mentioning the railroads was being sarcastic, but there are a lot of problems in the way that was done, even if the railroads succeeded in "opening up the West" blah blah. To this day, mile after mile of the coastline (of Puget Sound) is dominated by the railroad tracks that follow the shoreline and cut the beach off from the general public. It's hard to find a beach on the east shore of Puget Sound that isn't marred by an intrusive railroad line.
How does one compute the "fair market value" of a home in a condemned neighborhood?
If this doesn't expose the hypocrisy of liberalsim, I don't know what will. It is interesting that the supposed liberals on this court...and those who pretend to look out for the little people vs Big Business, have essentially taken the side of Big Business over the little people.
I'm at the closed end of a five-house cul-de-sac that I'm sure developers would love to buy up and turn into a dozen townhouses (a lot of that going on around here in recent years). Now all they need to do is add a little gimmick to justify it as a "public purpose" and we're outta here.
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