Home seizure ruling doesn't play in Texas - amendment quickly proposed to limit powers

After decision, an amendment is quickly proposed to limit powers of eminent domain

Texas' cultural commitment to private property rights surfaced quickly Thursday as a state legislator moved to blunt the impact of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that local governments may seize land for private development.

Hours after the court's 5-4 ruling came down, Rep. Frank Corte Jr., R-San Antonio, said he would seek "to defend the rights of property owners in Texas" by proposing a state constitutional amendment limiting local powers of eminent domain, or condemnation.

Houston Mayor Bill White and Harris County Judge Robert Eckels offered assurances that the city and county do not intend to condemn land for private development projects.

But officials in the beachfront town of Freeport, south of Houston, said they would move aggressively to condemn property owned by two seafood companies to clear the way for an $8 million private marina.

The Supreme Court ruled against a group of property owners in New London, Conn., who challenged a city plan to demolish their riverfront homes to make way for offices, a hotel and other commercial buildings.

Justice John Paul Stevens, in the majority opinion, said such projects are within the scope of a clause in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution that authorizes condemning property for "public use."

Stevens wrote that promoting economic development, the stated goal of the New London project, "is a traditional and long accepted governmental function, and there is no principled way of distinguishing it from the other public purposes the court has recognized," such as taking land for roads, parks or libraries.

In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the majority's interpretation of "public use" was so broad that "the specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

Joining Stevens in the majority were Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. Dissenting with O'Connor were Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

The opinion said states concerned about excessive use of condemnation were free to pass laws restricting it, and Corte said he intended to do just that.

Corte said he would ask Gov. Rick Perry to add the condemnation issue to the agenda of the special legislative session now under way so that the proposed constitutional amendment could appear on the November ballot.

Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said the governor would consider requests to add items to the agenda, but probably not until legislators resolve the school finance issue. She said Perry supports property rights and was concerned about the Supreme Court ruling.

Corte said in a news release that his proposed amendment would "limit a local governmental entity's power of eminent domain, preventing them from bulldozing residences in favor of private developers."

White and Eckels said such concerns were unfounded in Houston and Harris County.

"The city of Houston has not, and likely never will, use eminent domain powers as aggressively as some cities simply for the purposes of economic development," White said in a statement. "We do respect property rights, and believe that eminent domain should not be used in a way that might simply benefit one economic interest versus another."

The mayor said, however, that he is pleased the court upheld the use of eminent domain to reduce blight.

Eckels said Commissioners Court has shown no inclination to condemn land for private development, and he would not support any move to do so.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority, empowered by the law that created it to condemn property within 1,500 feet of transit stations, is not "currently planning" to use that authority for projects along the Main Street light rail line or elsewhere, spokesman Ken Connaughton said.

Asked if the agency might exercise the authority in the future, Connaughton said, "Who knows what happens tomorrow? But there are no plans to do it."

Barry Klein, president of the Houston Property Rights Association, said he considers Metro's condemnation authority excessive. He said quasi-governmental agencies such as management districts and tax increment reinvestment zones might also try to take advantage of the court ruling.

"I'm sure there are some self-servingly creative people in the leadership of these organizations who will try to find a way to do this," Klein said.

Developer Ed Wulfe of Houston-based Wulfe & Co. said Houston's public entities have long resisted acquiring property through eminent domain unless it was for road improvements or other public uses.

Wulfe said, however, that governments and developers can use the type of condemnation cited in the New London case as a tool to redevelop inner-city neighborhoods that stand to benefit economically.

"I think on a very, very careful and selective basis it could be used to improve neighborhoods," said Wulfe. "Whether it's creating affordable housing or jobs, it could be an interesting way to remove blight."

Matthew Deal of Lewis Realty Advisors, a property appraisal and consulting firm that deals in condemnation, said Houston's new downtown sports arenas offer a good example of the benefits of local governments taking full advantage of their eminent domain powers.

The sports arenas energized parts of downtown that were "ridden with crime, boarded-up buildings and dangerous to be in," said Deal, calling the Supreme Court ruling "a score for governments and their development partners."

The satanic forces are trying to destroy all vestiges of sovereignty. They are trying to control everything on the Planet. To them everything is a commodity to be bought and sold. Their supercomputers are working overtime, measuring, quantifying and calculating just how to increase the temperature enough to not alert the frogs that they are being boiled to death.

Fortunately, there is a force much higher than all of the malevolent powers-that-be who are currently playing their satanic games.

The Master of the Universe has a plan. He is ultimately in control of world events. Truth is pouring into the zeitgeist at the moment, and many people are finally waking up to what is right and what is wrong.

This time was prophesied to unfold. There still remains many good and decent people who are holding the very fabric of the universe together. Freerepublic has a large percentage of these people as members.

Having faith in the ultimate benevolence of the Creator is very difficult in the face of real evil, but it is vital to our wellbeing.

(I didn't post the story below as a free standing thread. Go ahead if you want to.)

Freeport moves to seize 3 properties

FREEPORT - With Thursday's Supreme Court decision, Freeport officials instructed attorneys to begin preparing legal documents to seize three pieces of waterfront property along the Old Brazos River from two seafood companies for construction of an $8 million private boat marina.

he court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that cities may bulldoze people's homes or businesses to make way for shopping malls or other private development. The decision gives local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.

"This is the last little piece of the puzzle to put the project together," Freeport Mayor Jim Phillips said of the project designed to inject new life in the Brazoria County city's depressed downtown area.

Over the years, Freeport's lack of commercial and retail businesses has meant many of its 13,500 residents travel to neighboring Lake Jackson, which started as a planned community in 1943, to spend money. But the city is hopeful the marina will spawn new economic growth.

"This will be the engine that will drive redevelopment in the city," City Manager Ron Bottoms said.

Lee Cameron, director of the city's Economic Development Corp., said the marina is expected to attract $60 million worth of hotels, restaurants and retail establishments to the city's downtown area and create 150 to 250 jobs. He said three hotels, two of which have "high interest," have contacted the city about building near the marina.

"It's all dependent on the marina," Cameron said. "Without the marina, (the hotels) aren't interested. With the marina, (the hotels) think it's a home run."

Since September 2003, the city has been locked in a legal battle to acquire a 300-by-60-foot tract of land along the Old Brazos River near the Pine Street bridge as well as a 200-foot tract and 100-foot tract along the river through eminent domain from Western Seafood Co. and Trico Seafood Co.

Eminent domain is the right of a government to take private property for public use upon payment of the fair market value.

The tracts of land would be used for a planned 800- to 900-slip marina to be built by Freeport Marina, a group that that includes Dallas developer Hiram Walker Royall. He would buy the property from the city and receive a $6 million loan from the city to develop the project.

Freeport Marina would then invest $1 million in the project and contribute a 1,100-foot tract of land, valued at $750,000, to it before receiving the loan.

Western Seafood spokesman Wright Gore III said the wholesale shrimp company was disappointed with the Supreme Court decision, but believes the ruling does not apply to the city's eminent domain proceedings.

He said there is a provision in state law that allows residents of a city to a circulate a petition to call a vote on whether the city can take property using eminent domain.

"(This) is far, far from over," Gore said. "(We) would have liked to have seen a victory on the federal level, but it is by no means a settled issue."

Gore said Western Seafood's 30,000-square-foot processing facility, which sits on the 300-by-60-foot tract, would be forced to close if the land were seized.

That facility earns about $40 million annually, and Western Seafood has been in business in Freeport since 1946, he said.

City officials, however, have said the marina will still allow Western Seafood and Trico Seafood, which did not return telephone calls or e-mail Thursday, to operate their facilities.

In August, U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent ruled against a lawsuit filed by Western Seafood seeking to stop the city's eminent domain proceedings. The seafood company then appealed its case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, a request that initially was denied.

The appeals court then decided it would take the case, but not rule on it until after the Supreme Court made a ruling on the New London, Conn., case.

Chronicle reporter Richard Stewart contributed to this report.

citydesk@chron.com

richard.stewart@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3239024

James Madison:

"We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties."

"As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights."

"The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government."

John Adams:

"Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty."

George Washington:

"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."

Patrick Henry:

"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."

Alexis de Tocqueville:

"In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned."

Thomas Jefferson:

"A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference."

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government."

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

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