The Great National Land Grab

[jointpleasures]

With the balckouts over the northeastern United States last year, the talk of basically "rewiring America" started. In order to do this eminent domain will potentially rear its ugly head for tens of thousands land owners. In this case, it may be determined that it is for the good and safety of the public. Still a bad law, but not by the way it was intended to be used, but by the way the local, state and federal government have manipulated the law.

Originally used when America had to defend itself from foriegn invaders so that we (America's military) could set up a base on Farmer Jones land if needed to defend the country.

Marco, I have to agree with you somewhat. The original intentions of the law of eminent domain seem to contrast well with the current (original) Patriot Act.

 

[Phaedrus]

High Court to Hear Property Seizure Case

by Pete Yost
(Associated Press)

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court struggled Tuesday to balance the rights of property owners against the goals of town officials who want to sweep away old neighborhoods and turn the land over to private developers.

Riverfront residents who are suing the town of New London, Conn., say their working-class neighborhood is slated for destruction primarily to build an office complex that will benefit a pharmaceutical company that built its research and development headquarters nearby.

But an attorney representing the city, Wesley Horton, told the court the revitalization project will create new jobs and trigger much-needed economic growth. He said increased tax revenue is enough of a legal basis for the city to exercise the power of eminent domain and compel the residents to sell their homes.

If a city wanted to seize property in order to turn a "Motel 6 into a Ritz-Carlton, that would be OK?" Justice Sandra Day O'Connor asked.

"Yes, your honor, it would be," Horton replied.

The justices expressed sympathy for the longtime residents. At the same time, they questioned whether they have the authority to stop the town's plans.

The outcome could have significant implications.

In recent years, there have been over 10,000 instances of private property being threatened with condemnation or actually condemned by government for private use, according to the Institute for Justice. The group represents the New London residents who filed the case.

Scott Bullock, representing the neighborhood residents, argued that government cannot take private property from one owner and provide it to another just because the new commercial project will boost the city's finances. The city plans to give the developers a 99-year lease for a dollar a year.

"More than tax revenue was at stake," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg replied. "The town had gone down and down" economically.

O'Connor questioned whether the homeowners were asking the court to "second-guess" the governmental power of eminent domain.

The legal arguments concern the Fifth Amendment prohibition against taking private property for public use without just compensation.

The city says it is willing to pay a fair price.

"You are paying for it, but you are taking it from somebody who doesn't want to sell," Justice Antonin Scalia told Horton, the lawyer representing New London.

Several justices focused on the residents' argument that the court should impose standards for governments to meet when they want to sweep away neighborhoods for economic revitalization.

"A lot of times governments have no clue what they're going to do with the property," Dana Berliner, co-counsel for the neighborhood residents, said after the court arguments ended.

New London, a town of less than 26,000, once was a center of the whaling industry and later became a manufacturing hub. The revitalization project is a few miles downriver from the U.S. Navy's submarine base in Groton.

The starting point for Tuesday's arguments was a Supreme Court ruling five decades ago that allowed governments to take private property for urban renewal.

The neighborhood's lawyer, Bullock, seized on that case, contending there is a difference between the urban blight of 1954 and the current circumstance of an economically depressed town.

Justice Anthony Kennedy questioned Bullock's position, with the justice saying that economically depressed areas can quickly become blighted areas.

Ginsburg also wondered whether the urban renewal case offers much hope for the neighborhood. She pointed out that the issue in that case involved a department store that was not contributing at all to the blight in the area. The court nonetheless cleared the way for local government to take the department store's property for the renewal project.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who is battling thyroid cancer, did not attend the arguments and will be absent for the next two weeks. He has not attended arguments since October. Justice John Paul Stevens was out of town and missed the day's arguments.

The case is Susette Kelo v. City of New London and New London Development Corp., 04-108.

 

[eek.]

What about a system/law where if war has not been declared, 5 or 10 times fair value is mandatory?

 

[Phaedrus]

I don't think it's really a money issue eek. You take a guy like me -- seriously, there is nothing that I currently own that is not technically for sale if the price goes up enough. Except for one single thing. It's a silly, stupid thing with a market value in the neighbourhood of $ 0.00 or slightly above that I hang onto as a purely sentimental indulgence. But I wouldn't sell it for any price. Literally. Warren Buffet's money in a tax-free lump sum would not purchase this item.

By that same token, other people might feel that way about their homes, or some otherwise meaningless scratch of land somewhere. And it is, factually, their property -- the notion that in nearly every state you have to "rent" your property from the government in the form of property taxes, and then to add insult to injury can be forced to surrender it at the whim of the government, and for downright insulting purposes ("it is vital to the community that we build a Target in this very locale! Pack your shite!") is just an astonishing thing to me.

It's one of those bizarro issues where I honestly can't believe despite all the evidence that there is anyone, anywhere, not currently employed either as a real estate developer, lawyer, or politician, could advocate such a state of affairs. Yet people do. They should be beaten savagely each morning in lieu of breakfast until they change their minds, but unless some wild sexy new legislation is passed that will not happen and weirdos who are out of touch with basic reality will advocate the destruction of humanity in the name of setting up a Farmers' Market.

People are weird I guess. But short version (too late!) is no, not in case of war, not at five or ten or fifty or fifty thousand times market value, not for a new Wal-Mart or for preserving the wetlands or celebrating cultural diversity or as an anti-terrorism measure or urban renewal or any other altruistic clusterfúckery should any person be forced to surrender his property to the collective will. If the fate of the very world was for some weird reason hinged on this one guy moving out of his duplex, and he just didn't feel like it, we'd have to accept that we were all fooked and try to make the most of our impending doom by having a big orgy and refusing to invite the guy in question.

This is one of the unfortunate downsides of a philosophy based on "freedom from restraint and constraint." But I'll take it over a world where otherwise rational people think that for some weird reason my house is anything but my house.


Phaedrus

 

[DarrylParsons]

About 2 years ago I came to the realization that there is no such thing as property ownership. Dogs could easily devise a system in which they "owned" property just like humans where the human masters are to them what governments are to us. Basically the dogs have de facto ownership as long as their masters don't do the unthinkable. The dogs assume the masters won't do that, and to the extent they're right, they do have de facto ownership. Same is true with humans. There is no philosophical difference whatsoever. The land is yours until someone decides they want it and use force to get you off it. Now is that really ownership? Nope.

Since I will never have enough power to defend myself against a group of millions who want to gang up on me (ie. the government), I have decided I do not want to own any property officially. The only property I can have which is truly mine is that which can be transported and hidden. It's a sad state of affairs, but if we want to have true freedom, we must admit it to ourselves otherwise we are living in an illusion.

 

[eek.]

Western civilisation is pretty much based on stealing property from its original owners.

Heck, the entire North American continent was nicked from its original owners over the last few hundred years.

Australia, Canada, S Africa, Hawaii etc

Nowadays the invasion and leaseback system seems to be in effect, like in Iraq.

 

[bblight]

The one point I haven't seen made in this string is that government - any government, at any level, is the enemy of the people.

Government will always focus on self preservation first; on the needs of the group presently in power second and then everything else comes in a distant last place! Government is all about it's own needs and can be very dangerous to those who would challenge any government supported status quo.

Government is not your friend! It will always do whatever is in it's best interests - and it will steamroller anyone who gets in its way.

In the US, I think of Waco and Ruby Ridge as recent examples where the government just went in and murdered people that the powers considered to be extremist and causing a problems.

This same situation has happened in Canada to the Indians, and It regularly happens all over the world.

The government would resort to violence to remove anyone who resisted a government takeover in the name of eminent domain. It would kill anyone who violently resisted.

It doesn't matter whether the government is lead by Bush, or Clinton, or anyone else - the government is not your friend!

Thank you founding fathers for the second ammendment!

 

[DarrylParsons]

BB,

I think any post by Phaedrus pretty much has that written all over it. I tend to agree but I'm willing to make a pragmatic compromise and accept a government that's basically a mafia that provides security in exchange for extortion money, err, I mean tax dollars, as long as they provide their services more or less in proportion to the tax dollars they take from each person.

 

[stucco43]

You give stupidity a bad name

The one point I haven't seen made in this string is that government - any government, at any level, is the enemy of the people.
!

I find it very revealing of your true character to make this statement and then to be constantly defending our government..keep talking you clueless peace of G.W. scrotum sack!!!!!
backed into a corner and no way out!!!!!:kicking:

 

[volhound]

Here in Tennessee. The TVA takes farms and homes and holds on to them for a few years and then sells the land to developers with the highest bid. Leaving the orignal homeowner with pennies on the dollar. Some of the lands have been in the same family for hundreds of years.

TVA has been doing it since it's conception back in the 30's

It is dispicable

Eminent domain has it's place, but not like this. Original homeowners should have first right to purchase at the price they were paid. I understand if infrastructure is involved, but not like this

 

[Phaedrus]

Wow!!! We need to put together a care package of cocaine, spare ribs and hookers and send it to these guys ...

Agency May Pull Funds from BB&T Over Stance on Eminent Domain

(Charleston Daily Mail)

The Charleston Urban Renewal Authority likely will pull $2.3 million from BB&T because of the bank's stance on eminent domain.

Urban renewal board members voted Wednesday to seek bids from other banks for the agency's checking and investment accounts.

"I would be surprised if we did not move it," authority director Pat Brown said after the meeting. He said he doesn't plan to ask for bids from BB&T unless the company answers questions he posed in two letters earlier this year.

BB&T Chairman and CEO John Allison announced in January the bank would not lend money to commercial developers that plan to build shopping malls, condominiums and other private projects on land taken from private citizens by eminent domain.

In response, Brown wrote Allison a letter saying CURA has helped Charleston eliminate slums and blight and build projects like Charleston Town Center and several housing projects through its power of condemnation.

"My question to him was ‘would you accept deposits from a government agency that uses eminent domain?' " Brown told board members. "I never got an answer."

Nearly a month later, Allison wrote to Brown that regional bank president Phyllis Arnold would be in contact. Arnold urged the renewal authority to delay.

Brown wrote Arnold on Feb. 22, asking if BB&T would finance redevelopment of the sites of the former Holley and Worthy hotels, which CURA bought through condemnation, or proposed housing projects in the new East End Community Renewal Plan.

"She called me prior to the March 15 meeting, asking me to defer action until the Legislature was finished," he said. "The board agreed to do that. I haven't heard from her since. Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of Phyllis Arnold."

Mayor Danny Jones criticized BB&T at the meeting. "What does their public position have to do with our legislation? They're just playing games. They're playing politics on something that's very serious. They either have a position or they don't. Follow up on it."

Arnold did not return a call Wednesday seeking comment. But Bob Denham, senior vice president for public relations in North Carolina, said 99 percent of the responses since January have been favorable.

"It's been extraordinary. We're still receiving e-mails, letters and phone calls from people thanking us for our position. I think we've had more than 1,000 new accounts because of our stand."

CURA is the first agency to pull its money from the bank, he said. "What BB&T is against is using eminent domain for private development of private property. That's the key component: Private use is an abuse of eminent domain."

(the bank, obviously, not the agency)


Phaedrus