Eminent domain: A big-box bonanza?

[mom cat]

Wonder if theUS developers can outdo Mugabe's eviction of 1.5 million?


Eminent domain: A big-box bonanza?

Court's ruling OKed land grab for business like Target, Home Depot, CostCo, Bed Bath & Beyond
June 24, 2005: 3:20 PM EDT
By Parija Bhatnagar, CNN/Money staff writer

http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/23/news/fortune500/retail_eminentdomain/index.htm?cnn=yes

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The Supreme Court may have just delivered an early Christmas gift to the nation's biggest retailers by its ruling Thursday allowing governments to take private land for business development.

Retailers such as Target (Research), Home Depot (Research) and Bed, Bath & Beyond (Research) have thus far managed to keep the "eminent domain" issue under the radar -- and sidestep a prickly public relations problem -- even as these companies continue to expand their footprint into more urban residential areas where prime retail space isn't always easily found.

Eminent domain is a legal principle that allows the government to take private property for a "public use," such as a school or roads and bridges, in exchange for just compensation.

Local governments have increasingly expanded the scope of public use to include commercial entities such as shopping malls or independent retail stores. Critics of the process maintain that local governments are too quick to invoke eminent domain on behalf of big retailers because of the potential for tax revenue generation and job creation.

[AmandaRuth]

1. people are plenty pissed about this - i still say that a properly

written law banning eminent domain for corp profit is an issue that the Dem's could run on and win on. Use that, livable wages, sustained social security and cheaper better (universal) health care, and return the Dem's to their populist economic roots. Absolutely no fail.

[Philly Buster]

2. The Kelo decision stinks

Federal Courts have become too activist.

Now any time big business sees land they like they just bribe the local pols and it's theirs.

What really upsets me is the so called liberals and moderates are the ones who voted against the Constitution in favor of big busines.

[aquart]

3. The New York Times loves it.

Didn't they use eminent domain for a current expansion?

[indepat]

4. Is even one Justice not tainted by this decision or the December 2000

decision?

[AmandaRuth]

9. i think that is a myth

I admit that I have not done a lot of reading on this particular ruling, but from what I understand the judge split is 2 Dem appointed and 7 repuke appointed.

And from what i understand the Dem appointed judges are called liberal because they believe that women should not be subject to government regulation regarding their own bodies. And only that. Clinton was so hampered in appointing judges (no up and down votes for him) that the only way he could get anyone up there was to compromise with a social liberal for his base and corporatist for the obstructionist republicans.

Thats what I understand anyway, I could be wrong. We could sure use a true liberal on the court.

[pstans]

5. I am not as against this as many of the people here

Let me ask you this question...

Wouldn't you rather have the Big Box retailers getting built in blighted areas, redeveloping the area rather than eating up farm land on the outskirts of town causing everyone to drive farther to the store and promoting more decay of the already blighted areas?

The key is quality city planning and not abusing their power by saying areas are blighted when they aren't.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. What does ' blighted' mean to you?

'Blighted' is code for 'we want to make more revenue from that land.' A low income residential community may not be pretty, but if there are long term residents and a stable, supportive social network, is it blighted? Can you really compensate the residents for destroying said community, since it's unlikely they will all move to the same area?

Is it morally sound to break up a community for a professional sports stadium? A private marina? An old trailer park may not look good next to those beach condos, so declare it blighted, displace the residents, and put up a cutesy shopping center. That's the way it's done. Who cares that the residents were the carpenters, waitresses, store clerks, etc. who kept the town running. They can still work in Cute Town, but now they'll be driving 20 miles from the nearest inland town that doesn't have the same appeal.

The tradeoff you described is how this is justified, but the real question is, do we need Big Box retailers eating up residential land? Aren't there redevelopment parcels (say, all those abandoned manufacturing facilities) that are more appropriate for this sort of development?

[newswolf56]

7. The problem with such takings is that "fair market value"...

...payments to the displaced homeowners are never sufficient to enable them to purchase equal-quality replacement housing. This is because so-called "fair market value" is defined on the basis of the (artificially deflated) values of the (typically declining) neighborhood rather than the real worth of the property to developers. Nor do such payments include moving costs. Indeed, in every urban renewal project I know of -- especially when you add in the renters (who are typically evicted without any compensation whatsoever) -- the end result was a dramatic increase in homelessness: an ugly truth of U.S. capitalism long before the term "homeless" was invented.

Indeed the only exception to this nasty rule I have ever heard of -- this in a newspaper career spanning 45 years -- was the displacement of people by the Tennessee Valley Authority: those unfortunate folks were indeed fairly compensated and given all sorts of relocation assistance as well (though there was even major controversy over that).

At least during those years (1930s-1960s), there was not such a radical difference in house quality either. But there is absolutely no comparison between the skillfully fabricated, enduring quality of a house that was built, say, in the early 1900s (or even in the 1950s) and the throw-away, built-of-trash houses that are cobbled together today, with no skill whatsoever and literally hundreds of times the cost.

Moreover, this new Supreme Court ruling will make the takings problem many times worse -- especially since Wal-Mart and its ilk now have license to bribe politicians to whatever extent is necessary to destroy residential neighborhoods -- even those that are NOT in obvious decline -- and replace them with mega-stores.

Nor will state laws that more strictly regulate such takings be any defense: the court's medical marijuana ruling, followed by the government's rapidly escalating (Christofascist) war against medical marijuana use, clearly delivers the message that state law is no longer any barrier at all against federally sanctioned oppression.

[mom cat]

8. The people to be evicted did not feel like a blight anymore than

Mugabe's trash. Check out the following link:http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3944381

The kind of tactics used to terrify these poor elderly people are just a hint at what could possibly happen. We can easily see that what Mugabe was doing is wrong. People should not be considered "trash" to be removed at will either in Zimbabwe or the United States.

[AX10]

10. What determines "blight".

"Gee, that land looks like blight, let's take it and make a Wal-Mart".
:eyes:

[pstans]

11. Some quotes from the American Planning Association about the Kelo case

As I said before, I considered going into Urban Planning and was a student member of the American Planning Association (APA) a couple years ago and they haven't removed me from their email list. I am now getting my teaching degree, but am still interested in planning issues. Here is part of the email I got from the APA about the Kelo case that was decided. I agree with the ruling and the 5-4 decision shows that it is a touchy subject. This was the 4th case in the past year the APA got involved in and the other 3 were ruled 9-0 in favor.

<snip>
Now, back to Kelo. We believe that the ruling upheld a long-standing legal principle that eminent domain could be used for economic development (our brief cited examples such as canals.) This decision clarifies the law, it does not expand it. This was missed by many headline writers and quite a few journalists.

The Court (as it did in Tahoe a couple of years ago) relies heavily on
planning-both the comprehensive plan and the planning process. Both. The Court places great weight on planning and the planning process; it shows great confidence in planners; it requires that we be up to the task. One of the attorneys who drafted our brief says that the court has provided "a blinking, yellow light." It's not a green light and it's not giving anyone permission to run roughshod over anyone's rights.

The Institute for Justice (the libertarian think tank that financed Kelo's case and the PR campaign) has made it clear that it will next go the state legislatures and the state courts. We will need to work in partnership with our chapters and attorneys state by state. Jason and his staff are poised to provide assistance. (I would like to acknowledge the work of our Legislative and Policy Committee, chaired by Steve Preston, FAICP and previously Dave Siegel, AICP; our Amicus Committee chaired by Patty Salkin; and Jason Jordan, Lora Lucero and Roberta Rewers, particularly, as they have shepherded this process over many months.)

Kelo was not only a close, 5-4, decision by the Court, it was a close decision for APA. There are abuses of eminent domain. They need to be curtailed. I think the Court's decision will make it easier for our planners to curtail abuses and prevent abuses. It's the planners who typically call for open, transparent, inclusive democratic processes. Often, some elected officials and economic development types want to make the decisions behind closed doors. Another concern was that if economic development had been found not to be a valid use but blight removal was still valid (an issue not before the Court in this case), then it would have tilted the playing field even more against low-income and minority communities where blight can be shown more easily. In this respect, Justice Thomas has this point all wrong in his dissent.
<snip>