Posted on 06/29/2005 8:04:52 AM PDT by wmichgrad
Don't round up the militia just yet to help keep the government from taking your property.
Private-property rights advocates are up in arms over a June 23 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says local governments can condemn peoples' homes and turn the property over to developers for shopping centers, office parks and other private business projects.
``Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner,'' Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in a blistering dissent to the court's 5-4 ruling in a Connecticut case. ``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.''
Nothing, that is, except more restrictive laws in states like Michigan, which keep land-grabbing governments at bay.
While the court said it was OK for New London, Conn., to seize homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices, it also ruled that states can set their own laws regarding the use of ``eminent domain,'' or property condemnation.
In Michigan, you can rest comfortably knowing your local city council can't haul you out of your home on your La-Z-Boy and demolish your house to make way for a new Wal-Mart.
The Michigan Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling last year, said the taking of private property for economic development violates the state's constitution. Eminent domain is restricted to public uses such as roads and schools, or to clear blighted properties, the court said.
Its ruling, known as the Hathcock decision (named after a defendant in the case), stopped Wayne County from using eminent domain to assemble property for a 1,300-acre office park that promised 30,000 new jobs.
As a result, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling ``will not have any impact in Michigan,'' says Carl Rashid, a real estate attorney in the Butzel Long law firm in Detroit. ``Hathcock is the law.''
But some say the decision could lead to challenges of Michigan's law, or efforts to amend the state constitution by government officials hungry for more jobs and economic development.
In an effort to head off such a challenge, state Sen. Tony Stamas, R-Midland, on Tuesday proposed amending the state's constitution to outlaw the use of eminent domain for economic development.
Economic developers say eminent domain often is necessary to acquire the final pieces of property for large developments from owners who refuse to sell or make unreasonable price demands.
And some fear that Michigan could be at a competitive disadvantage with other states that allow eminent domain to be used for economic development.
Officials at the Michigan Economic Development Corp., the state's business-attraction agency, tell me they are unsure if the U.S. Supreme Court ruling will hurt the state's effort to land major projects, such as research centers.
Rashid said some of the highest-profile economic development projects in the state in recent years, such as Comerica Park and Ford Field in Detroit, minimized the use of eminent domain.
That happened, he said, because government officials began purchase negotiations with reasonable offers, rather than low-balling property owners.
``They adopted a smarter approach than in the past,'' he said about the sports stadium projects. Rashid represented large property owners in those cases.
Alan Ackerman, a Troy attorney who represents property owners in eminent domain cases, said he thinks the fight over private property rights is far from over.
He said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling has created the explosive property rights equivalent of letting the states decide the legality of abortion.
``This was not a 9-0 decision,'' Ackerman said. ``It was a 5-4 decision. This will be revisited.''
Contact Rick Haglund at (248) 540-7311 or e-mail him at rhaglund@boothnewspapers.com
"Economic developers say eminent domain often is necessary to acquire the final pieces of property for large developments from owners who refuse to sell or make unreasonable price demands."
Can someone please explain to me what an unreasonable price demand is?
I'm actually quit shocked at this article and shocked that MI has any respect at all for private property. I'd bet that Wayne Co. officials hate this law.
We're all in the same boat (ship of fools) and it's all for the Community (pronounced Comyoooooooooonutty)(/dripping sarcasm)
You got it, SierraWasp -
The USSC has again illegally rewritten the US constitution. The supreme fascists are having a ball holding a constitutional convention, and the people are not invited.
The court has changed "public use" to "public benefit." Public benefit is nothing more than the American version of the Marxist "common good." Public benefit is ever changing and can mean anything, to anyone, anywhere. The rights of the individual have been trumped in favor of the collective group - government.
The supremes have dumped tons of fascist garbage on every blade of privately owned grass in America.
You may carry a title on the land, you may pour your life savings into the land, and you may pay taxes on it, but in the end the government controls it and can take it any time.
Hitler stated in a speech in 1929 that people may own private property, but the state will always control that property to be certain that the will of the state is carried out. That, my friend, is fascism.
This decision is not just dangerous, it has the potential to become deadly.
"We are creating Communism with American characteristics."
Well, I need to head out and pull a stump for der Fatherland.
Ein Reich! Ein Volk! Seig Heil!
That's quite a suggestive tagline... but quite true!!!
Private property rights ~ Bump!
Great vision.
Thanks for the ping.
Don't give those bass turds any big ideas.
I hope I am not the first to come up with idea.
On second thought I hope I am and it will not go any farther then that.
I am sure politicians have thought of it and may have already used it for that purpose.
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