Posted on 08/26/2010 10:34:27 AM PDT by Captain Kirk
Imagine you come home from work one day to a notice on your front door that you have 45 days to demolish your house, or the city will do it for you. Oh, and you’re paying for it.
This is happening right now in Montgomery, Ala., and here is how it works: The city decides it doesn’t like your property for one reason or another, so it declares it a “public nuisance.” It mails you a notice that you have 45 days to demolish your property, at your expense, or the city will do it for you (and, of course, bill you).
Your tab with the city will constitute a lien on your property, and if you don’t pay it within 30 days (or pay your installments on time; if you owe over $10,000, you can work out a deal to pay back the city for destroying your home over a period of time, with interest), the city can sell your now-vacant land to the highest bidder.
Alabama law empowers municipalities to do just this. Officials can demolish structures that they determine, “due to poor design, obsolescence, or neglect, have become unsafe to the extent of becoming public nuisances…and [are] causing or may cause a blight or blighting influence on the city and the neighborhoods in which [they are] located.” Keep in mind, so-called standards like “obsolescence” are so vague they can mean anything, so even a well-maintained home that government officials don’t like the look of can be fed to the bulldozers
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/08/26/eminent-domain-by-any-other-name-still-stinks/#ixzz0xjYVXqgM
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Developer’s love eminent domain.
Taking personal property like someone’s house is theft.
That is not what Eminent Domain was meant for. It was used to make roads, furnish living quarters for our soldiers, and other projects. A few years ago the law was changed so that personal property could be confiscated and sold to developers to make things like shopping malls.
What it should be used for is confiscating the property where the mosque is to be built close to ground zero, and tell the muzzies to look elsewhere.
‘What it should be used for is confiscating the property where the mosque is to be built close to ground zero, and tell the muzzies to look elsewhere.’
Disagree, but that is off the thread. Using Gov’t to take any property for someone else is tyranny.
I guess Day Street is destined to begone soon.
If your house is declared a public nuisance it probably is a public nuisance. I would say that in most cases the house is either empty or owned by a slumlord.
I was talking to a guy yesterday who said he had family in Pennsylvania that lived on a family farm for anumber of years. In the 70’s he thought, the government forced them off the land because they were going to build a dam. To this day there is no dam there, and he said it’s a dumping ground for trash and junk now. Pretty sad. Thanks guvmnt.
These aren’t cases of eminent domain.
Exactly. This is a case of a blogger jumping up and down and wanting attention by calling something that isn't eminent domain, eminent domain.
And Bell Street, Air Base Blvd, Troy Hwy, South Blvd.....
Step 1. Buy Killdozer
Step 2. Find address of all local Government offices and program them into a GPS
Step 3. (omitted due to FR rules)
And I disagre with you, but that’s what makes this country what it is.
I can think of several cases where Iminent Domain could be useful and benefit the majority of Americans, and that’s what it was intended for, but the interpretations of laws is unfortunatley up to unscrupulous politicians.
Lets say China buys a couple thousand acres of U.S. forest for its lumber ( I don’t think the U.S. should sell to foreign countries, but that’s for another post). After China buys the land we find out that it’s using the land to build weapons or some other devious use.
Would you have a problem with Eminent Domain in this case?
You wouldn’t use Eminent Domain in such a case: that’s a strawman. Eminent Domain is not our last, best defense against the Chinese.
If the new owners of the land were committing a crime then you would prosecute in the usual way.
But if they came by their property legally and are doing nothing illegal, then seizing their property is criminal and immoral.
Yes, but he does have a point.
The laws covering Eminent Domain were changed a few years ago so that personal property can be confiscated and then sold to developers so that housing projects, shopping malls, just about anything, can be built where the tax dollars collected would be more than it was before.
This is in my mind criminal.
Ok. Bad example, but I still think using it to prevent the mosque from being built is feasable. It can be used for National Security reasons, and the terrorist money used for building the mosque is grounds enough.
Easier to clear things up by charging the GZ Immam and his wife with being unregistered agents of a foreign power. B’bye.
R U still under the allusion that things makes sense or are right?
Since that disastrous Supreme Court ruling - many towns are taking ANY property they want - if it's profitable to someone else who will slip some green into some pockets - and/or can be developed into a property that will bring in more taxes - private home ownership be damned.
Leftists hate private property. They only “allow” us to “own” our houses because they can collect property taxes from us. But really, they own our property and can do whatever they want with it.
You really don’t own anything. The government owns it and out of the kindness and goodness of its benevolent heart lets you use it until it stops letting you use it.
“If your house is declared a public nuisance it probably is a public nuisance”
How can the house be a nuisance? Is it wandering around anoying people?
Property was being condemned long before the Kelso ruling.
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