Eminent Domain Considered For Novus (in St. Louis Suburb

The Rock Hill Planning and Zoning Committee voted to recommend allowing Novus Companies to use eminent domain under Chapter 353 of the Missouri code in acquiring properties on the northwest side of the Manchester/McKnight roads redevelopment area.

Acting City Administrator Don Cary told the Times that while Tax Increment Financing (TIF) allows the same process, using Chapter 353 keeps the "TIF clock" from starting. He said that once the "tear down" begins, the TIF clock starts and the city has a 23-year time frame to pay the TIF.

At the committee meeting last week, Allen Speele, vice president of Novus, also said that using TIF takes longer in redevelopment projects.

"353 is quicker and gives us more flexibility in the assembling of properties," he said.

Speele said that Novus had a prospective tenant for the piece of property on the north boundary of the property, and that would be developed first. The tenant is a Rock Hill business owner who wants to stay in Rock Hill.

He added that Novus is planning an office building at the intersection of Old Warson Road and McKnight Road.

Novus would use its "best efforts" to avoid using eminent domain and that it had never had to use this tool before in its developments, he said.

"It is necessary and desirable to effectuate this proposed development in order to reach that goal," Speele said. "You could run into situations where you have 100 people who want to sell, and there's one who won't sell at any price."

In passing the recommendation 8-1, the committee said that the development was in the public interest, consistent with the comprehensive plan of the city, that the use of eminent domain would be necessary for the plan, and that the plan would "positively" impact the city's revenues.

The Rock Hill Board of Aldermen will consider the committee's recommendation at a public hearing preceding its meeting on Jan. 25.

Here is my "letter to editor" that I have sent to the Webster-Kirkwood Times. (probably will not be published because I was judgemental when I labeled the committe members "fascist.")

Dear Editor:

Referring to the article “Eminent Domain Considered For Novus,” published in the Jan. 14-20, 2005 Webster-Kirkwood Times, consider the following:

If I was a property owner “on the northwest side of the Manchester/McKnight roads redevelopment area,” and subsequently discovered that “the Rock Hill Planning and Zoning Committee voted to recommend allowing Novus Companies to use eminent domain under Chapter 353 of the Missouri code in acquiring properties,” I would address the following question to the Rock Hill Planning and Zoning Committee:

1--Since contrary to the thinking that would have us believe that the conflict, violence, tyranny, and destructiveness that permeates modern society is the result of "bad" or "hateful" people, disparities in wealth, or lack of education, all of our social problems are the direct consequence of a general failure to respect the inviolability of one another’s property interests.

2--Since a supreme document, the basis for the rule of law exist and was enacted by our fellow Missouri citizens in 1876, called the Missouri Constitution, containing a specific and unambiguous covenant addressing the issue of potential and inevitable abuse of “eminent domain” by lawless government officials.

3--Bill of Rights

Article I, Section 28

“That private property shall not be taken for private use with or without compensation, unless by consent of the owner, except for private ways of necessity, and except for drains and ditches across the lands of others for agricultural and sanitary purposes, in the manner prescribed by law; and that when an attempt is made to take private property for a use alleged to be public, the question whether the contemplated use be public shall be judicially determined without regard to any legislative declaration that the use is public.”

4--Since by definition under fascism, "title" to property remains in private hands, but "control" over such property is exercised by the state. And thus, fascism has given us state regulatory systems, in which property owners, be they farmers, homeowners, or businesses, have the illusion of owning what they believe to be "theirs," while the state increasingly exercises the real ownership authority (i.e., control).

5—Since during the 1940’s many citizens of Rock Hill, many now deceased and a few still living, left the comfort of the USA to risk their lives in the effort to defeat fascism in Europe.

6—And since now nearly 60 years later, their local government is blatantly acting in a fascist manner in which they so bravely went to war to annihilate, please tell me how “Committee” members can reconcile their fascist eminent domain recommendation with the stated prohibition of such a recommendation detailed in the Missouri Constitution?

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