Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes

[Tombstone]

This sickens me. Loss of property rights for Socialist policies and tax agendas by the local authorities. Where will this stop? Maybe it's time for me to stop bitching about stuff like this and go into politics myself.

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WASHINGTON (AP) - A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday 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 often is at war with individual property rights.

The 5-4 ruling - assailed by dissenting Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled in America - was a defeat for Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had 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.

The case was one of six resolved by justices on Thursday. Among those still pending for the court, which next meets on Monday, is one testing the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commands on government property.

Writing for the court's majority in Thursday's ruling, Justice John Paul Stevens said local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community. States are within their rights to pass additional laws restricting condemnations if residents are overly burdened, he said.

"The city has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including - but by no means limited to - new jobs and increased tax revenue," Stevens wrote.

Stevens was joined in his opinion by other members of the court's liberal wing - David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. The bloc typically has favored greater deference to cities, which historically have used the takings power for urban renewal projects that benefit the lower and middle class.

They were joined by Reagan appointee Justice Anthony Kennedy in rejecting the conservative principle of individual property rights. Critics had feared that would allow a small group of homeowners to stymie rebuilding efforts that benefit the city through added jobs and more tax revenue for social programs.

"It is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the boundary line nor to sit in review on the size of a particular project area," Stevens wrote.

O'Connor argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," she wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

Connecticut residents involved in the lawsuit expressed dismay and pledged to keep fighting.

"It's a little shocking to believe you can lose your home in this country," said resident Bill Von Winkle, who said he would refuse to leave his home, even if bulldozers showed up. "I won't be going anywhere. Not my house. This is definitely not the last word."

Scott Bullock, an attorney for the Institute for Justice representing the families, added: "A narrow majority of the court simply got the law wrong today and our Constitution and country will suffer as a result."

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.

Connecticut state Rep. Ernest Hewett, D-New London, a former mayor and city council member who voted in favor of eminent domain, said the decision "means a lot for New London's future."

The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.

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.

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.

[capt_buzzard]

Good auld American Irish judge O'Connor. She won't go down too good.At least these poor people will get some compensation.Thank their Stars & Stripes for the 5th Amendment.


Tombstone for President

[Clint]

You had better get into the fray Tombstone. That decision is wrong in so many ways it makes my head swim. I’ve spent a lot of years working for city government. I’ve worked through a lot of these development issues. The one thing I was always thankful of , was that property ownership, when it came to development, was between the property owners. I never wished I could get involved.

I went to condemnation once and that was to build a flood control dike and tide gate. It was clearly an issue of a property owner standing in the way of something the community needed.

I cannot believe this. They have lost the bubble.

[Scrat]

Screw it. I don't care what Americans allow anymore we have become a nation of sheep that follow the almighty dollar around like it is a sugar coated carrot.

Tombstone by my guest, you won't be alone and in no time you will be bought. If ya can't beat them, join them!!!!

Like I said long ago here, there are better places in this world than the USSA.

[spot]

Originally Posted by Tombstone

This sickens me. Loss of property rights for Socialist policies and tax agendas by the local authorities. Where will this stop? Maybe it's time for me to stop bitching about stuff like this and go into politics myself.

Tell me, Tombstone, do you have the same criticism of a local authority forcibly buying private land or buildings for public works - like building a new road, for example? I realize that US cities usually have grid roads, but I can imagine that by-pass or relief roads must be needed as population densities change.

[koan]

How are they acquiring the property? Do they compensate the families at fair market value or do they get rock bottom prices? Not that money makes up for being told your home is being destroyed. It would be worse for people living in homes that had been in the family for a long time.

A woman who lived up the street in the city I just moved from was told that her house had been built (by former owners) too close to the pipeline and she had to "remove it" at her own expense. The property was still hers but no house could be built on it. I don't know how it was resolved. The regulations were all in the city planning department when the house was built but no one enforced them for over forty years, I guess. Now she is supposed to pay the price. It made us all laugh when we heard it until we realized they were serious.

[anastrophe]

Originally Posted by spot

Tell me, Tombstone, do you have the same criticism of a local authority forcibly buying private land or buildings for public works - like building a new road, for example? I realize that US cities usually have grid roads, but I can imagine that by-pass or relief roads must be needed as population densities change.

i realize this was addressed to tombstone. however, i must needs point out that at issue here is NOT bypass or relief roads, or public works - that's why this is such an upsetting issue for so many. never before has 'generating more tax revenue' been seen as a legitimate grounds for forcible taking by the government. *public* works - a freeway, most typically - have brought about forcible taking on numerous occasions since the great highway systems were first built in this country after world war II. these have always been upheld because they are for the greater public need, and the greater public good. but now, that concept has been horribly widened to include non-public works - privately funded works - that local governments believe will swell their coffers with more tax revenue than the property taxes the individual homeowners remit. office space is not a public work. a shopping mall is not a public work. it's private business. and while i'm all in favor of private business, i do not believe it should include displacing people from their homes because the businesses 'need' the tony location, and the local government 'needs' the tax revenues.

this is a dangerous distortion of the fifth amendment, and i'm frankly shocked by it.

[spot]

Originally Posted by anastrophe

this is a dangerous distortion of the fifth amendment, and i'm frankly shocked by it.

It does seem to go far further than the nuances discussed on findlaw, as at:

As governmental regulation of property has expanded over the years--in terms of zoning and land use controls, environmental regulations, and the like--the Court never developed, as it admitted, a "set formula to determine where regulation ends and taking begins." Rather, as one commentator remarked, its decisions constitute a "crazy quilt pattern" of judgments.

The reason I focused on public roads is that, as you say, there's an obvious public need coupled with an obvious public benefit with the public road, and I wondered how that was balanced in Tombstone's mind. The local authority would contend, I imagine, that there's an equally obvious public benefit, while admitting no obvious public need, in this proposal. The fifth amendment and associated case law haven't yet polished that facet as gleamily as they'll need to now. It goes against the grain of "need", I can't see it being allowed in the long term.

[Clint]

An 80 year old couple has lived in the same house since they got married 60 years ago. The city has grown up around them and the property they own has been zoned commercial. Wal Mart wants to build a big box on an adjacent parcel but lacks 7,000 square feet to satisfy the code for parking. Because the couple’s home is a nonconforming use that is hindering a job producing business from locating in a commercial zone, they won’t get to live out their lives in the home they raised their children in.

Only one of the sad scenarios that comes to my mind.

[spot]

Originally Posted by Clint

Only one of the sad scenarios that comes to my mind.

Good God, Clint, I thought you were telling me the facts of the case up 'til then.