Eminent Domain – How It Could Affect You
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What is eminent domain? It is the right by which a sovereign government, or a person or agency acting under its authority, may acquire private property for public or semi-public use upon payment of reasonable compensation and without consent of the owner. To get a standing of eminent domain on your property the powers that be are required to bring a court action against the property in a process called condemnation in which the court determines if the use is for the betterment of the community and then decides the price of compensation to be paid to the owner. This price can be well below current market value depending on the area of the country and which group of people are attempting to seize control of said property. This property can be seized to build a road, a school, a courthouse, or in some cases private developers representing the government have used it to build more expensive homes and offices that will pay more in property taxes than the buildings that they will be replacing.
In July of 2004, CBS dedicated a portion of its newscast to the issue of whether eminent domain was being abused with the question being posed as to if the seizure of property was always in the public’s best interest. Correspondent Mike Wallace reported on incidents where people who don’t want to sell their homes at any price — just to see them end up in the hands of another private owner — are fighting back. One example that Wallace used was of a family who had lived in a home for 38 years only to find themselves being forced out to make way for more expensive condominiums. In this particular case the family, believing that the government was morally wrong, refused to vacate their home. However, they are in for quite a fight as the town’s mayor plans on tearing down not just their home but 55 others around it along with four apartment buildings and more than a dozen businesses so that private developers can build high-priced condos and a high-end shopping mall. The mayor told 60 Minutes that the project was needed to prop up the city’s shrinking tax base so that city services can be maintained.
However, to accomplish this the mayor must use the condemnation process and should have been forced to prove that the area was blighted but in this instance that was not the case. The mayor nonetheless argues that the term blighted is a statutory word that has nothing to do with the condition of your property but rather is a question to whether or not area can be used for a higher and better use. The mayor’s feeling is that the term should be applied to describe if the structures in the area generally meet today’s standards not if a home is painted. In this situation the standard was set that the homes in the area must have a minimum of three bedrooms, two baths, an attached two-car garage and central air. In this particular community that standard was almost impossible to meet since the community is over 100 years old.
Attorneys Dana Berliner and Scott Bullock, on behalf of the Institute for Justice, filed suit on behalf of the couple against the city claiming that taking private property in this way is unconstitutional. During testimony Berliner claimed that “this is a nationwide epidemic” and claims to have “more than 10,000 instances on record in which government has taken property away from one person only to give it to another person in just the last five years. Fortunately for the couple they won their case and forced the city to remove the blighted label from their property. Berliner then went on to add that while “everyone knows that property can be taken for a road, nobody thinks that property can be taken to give it to their neighbor or the large business down the street for their economic benefit.”
Sadly, this isn’t just happening in small towns but also in New York City. Just a few blocks from Times Square, the state forced a man to give up a corner that his family had owned for over 100 years so the New York Times could build its new headquarters on the property. When challenged in court regarding the seizure of this property, New York State’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of the big corporate entity stating that the new headquarters would eliminate blight and in the long run benefit the public.
Unfortunately, the very threat of eminent domain changes people’s lives. People who were smart enough to invest in prime real estate before it became prime are being forced out to make way for businesses and entrepreneurs with more money to feed the government underbelly. If you are fed up with government dictating to you, especially in areas such as eminent domain, it is time to take charge and start the legal process to get these issues on the next voting ballot in your area. Successfully, putting an end to corporate and government corruption is up to you and remember in this instance it could be your very home or business that is threatened by these policies.
[tags]eminent domain, legal process, government corruption, corporation, condemnation, blighted property, Dana Berliner, Institute for Justice, Scott Bullock, Mike Wallace, CBS, public property, private property[/tags]
6 Comments
Rick Hogan
September 6th, 2007
at 8:46am
There is only one political party that supports private property rights and opposes eminant domain:
http://www.lp.org/issues/platform_all.shtml#propright
It’s time to say goodbye to the Republicans and Democrats who don’t care about our rights.
Rick
reflections
September 12th, 2007
at 3:22am
Dear Rick
I wish that I believed it was possible for a smaller party to win the presidency but to date that has never happened. Does your party have a viable candidate that can stand up to the ones being presented by the Republican and Democratic parties?
Have a good day. Jackie
Steve Hobberstad
September 23rd, 2007
at 5:25am
Hi, Jackie.
«a higher and better use» ?
HOW SUBJECTIVE IS THAT?!!
For example, regarding: “Just a few blocks from Times Square, the state forced a man to give up a corner that his family had owned for over 100 years so the New York Times could build its new headquarters on the property”…
Considering the Printed Media’s (including the New York Times’) considerable, recent propensity to shun its fiduciary responsibility to the public to INFORM, thus relegating it to the producer of bird cage lining material: who is to say what constitutes “a higher and better use”?
As soon as the BS artists (i.e., politicians, lawyers, etc.) have managed to engage us in discourse over that which we all intuitively KNOW is BS, the BS artists have won! —or at least managed to get a significant “leg up” on us.
When we learned of “The Doctrine of Manifest Destiny” in our high school history classes some of us accepted the legitimacy of that concept FAR TOO EASILY. I suspect that many of the same people who were unoffended by that doctrine are the hold-outs who still believe that this country was reconciled in its unprovoked invasion of Iraq.
There’s something TERRIBLY wrong with all this!
Like a boa constrictor tightening its stranglehold on its prey (a coil at a time): injustice advances in a similar fashion. We’re losing our rights and liberty, incrementally, a little more each day. This is happening because we— collectively and individually—aren’t paying attention to the attrition. Add to that the fact that once we get far enough past the days when things were better and most of us won’t even remember the way they used to be. [I wonder how many adolescents (or not-so-adolescents) remember that not so very long ago TV viewers weren’t assailed by station logos “branded” into the corner of their TV screens...not to mention the annoying animated advertisements that detract from the program we’re trying to watch.]
I think (at least I HOPE) you know that I have a great deal of respect for you, Jackie, based on what I’ve read in your wonderful columns; but when you say, “Sadly, this isn’t just happening in small towns but also in New York City”…what do you mean by “just”? What makes the citizens of NYC any different from those of Pahrump, Nevada?
Just to illustrate how easy it is to fall into this trap, when I read your “Sadly…” statement my reaction was that you’d gotten it backward: that if there were any “just” to be had, it’d be the reverse; i.e., that this inequity might “just” be confined to NYC…sparing the “more deserving” citizens of Small Town America. Then I realized I’d fallen into the same trap!
NO ONE DESERVES TO BE TREATED THIS WAY! —not the citizens of New York, not the citizens of Pahrump, not the citizens of Vieques, not the citizens of Diego Garcia, not the citizens of Palestine…NO ONE!
reflections
September 25th, 2007
at 4:26am
Dear Steve
I take your admonishment. You are right. It doesn’t matter where this injustice is done it should not be happening. I probably did word it backwards. I guess I was just surprised that in an area as big as New York with its influential people that they could still get away with such an injustice.
I am so outraged about what our politicians seem to get away with that I want to make a statement that will wake people up to the dangers around us.
My sister was telling me just last week that the nation is on high alert once again and that she had read that we need to make sure and have a 3 months supply of water, food, medical supplies, propane, etc. I believe that this fear tactic is just another way that the politicians seek to keep control of the masses. They think that they can keep doing anything they want to as long as we are to afraid to object.
On the other hand, we know that Chavez, who is just in Venezuela, has Russian help building weapons factories that could ultimately produce long-range missles that could target the U.S.. What are we doing about them? Fear again? I don’t know but I would much rather we use our military might to take out obvious danger to us than targeting countries and making them our enemies.
Have a good day. Jackie
Steve Hobberstad
September 26th, 2007
at 10:20am
Politicians not only SEEM to be getting away with a lot of rotten stuff these days they ARE getting away with it, and I’m just as outraged as you are by it. I also agree that the fear tactic is just another way of controlling the masses. Unfortunately it seems to be working. In his first inaugural address FDR warned that “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” while the Bush administration and its Media lapdog keep warning us that what we really need to fear is NOT ENOUGH FEAR. This mindset now has us poised to compound foolhardiness with unbridled, unapologetic, inexcusable stupidity.
While I was AMAZED to see that the citizens of this country could be induced to repeat another Vietnam-like misadventure scarcely thirty-five years after the initial event (still fresh within the collective consciousness of virtually every middle-aged person alive today) I’m utterly FLABBERGASTED at the audacity of this administration to be rattling its saber at yet another Gulf nation in the very midst of the current fiasco, although I’ve lost all hope that the citizens of this country will “just say no” to further imperialistic exploits—even (read: ESPECIALLY) if “their” Congress won’t.
You’re also right that the politicians WILL keep doing anything they want as long as we are too afraid to object, which is why I said in your blog at http://tinyurl.com/393o2o that “…for anyone who’s paying attention there’s more DEMOCRACY going on in Venezuela these days than there is here in the United States. After a failed U.S. coup to depose Chavez in 2002 he was restored to power (after a mere one-day deposal) by the popular will of the people. On the other hand we REMAIN in Iraq despite the fact that over 70% of us want OUT of Iraq…”
I’m not sure what—or who—you mean, though, by “What are we doing about them?” Them, who?
I hadn’t heard anything about Russia helping Venezuela develop a nuclear weapons program (if you have I’d be interested in reading about it) and Scott Ritter (chief UNSCOM weapons inspector in Iraq until he resigned in protest over U.S. interference with the program) has stated categorically that there is NO WAY that Iran is anywhere near having nuclear weapons capability. And anyway, what right does this country have to dictate such terms when it’s not following the terms of its own international nuclear non-proliferation treaties? —and Israel has nukes.
Since you seemed to enjoy “Blowback” so well, I’d like to recommend a set of Michael Parenti videos (parts 1 & 2) called “Lies, War and Empire” (at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZTrY3TQpzw and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaTPDFsDdIk respectively), which do a SPECTACULAR job of explaining how we’ve gotten to where we are. Besides being very informative this guy is, in my opinion, quite entertaining as a lecturer.
Finally, regarding «I want to make a statement that will wake people up to the dangers around us»: since reading your kind encouragement that I write on these subjects I’ve been all the more determined to do the very same thing myself…especially in light of this new drumbeat for war with Iran. I’ve got an idea for a project I’m going to submit to the “Center for Creative Change” at Antioch College in Seattle, which I’ll CC to you when it’s finished.
Steve
PS: I wonder how advertising is allocated to Lockergnome blogs. When I just bopped over to your Cindy Sheehan column a minute ago there was a “Free Ann Coulter Email” ad right smack in the middle of it! If it weren’t for the honor I’d be willing to bet you, I and Mrs. Sheehan would just as soon spend a month in a ditch outside Crawford as sign up for Ann Coulter email.
reflections
September 27th, 2007
at 4:45am
Dear Steve
The information I obtained on Venezuela was taken from the local Springfield, MO Leader on Sunday Sept 16, 2007 (or so I believe). It could have been a different Sunday but I think that was the one. They were very specific about Russia assisting Venezuela’s Chavez in creating a weapons factory that would ultimately be able to produce long-range missiles.
My thoughts are that if you look on Google you will have to find some information regarding it there as well.
I will look forward to seeing a copy of your proposal for change when you get it finished. As my life begins to settle down some now that school has started I will be able to get my head back into the game.
Have a good day. Jackie