CA: Lawmakers rethink land-seizure laws

SACRAMENTO – Government's historic power to take land has been exercised to clear out slumlords and revitalize decaying downtowns, as well as manipulated to uproot homeowners and mom and pop stores to make way for mega-malls and high-rises.

Hit with scattered horror stories but convinced from her experiences on the San Diego City Council that eminent domain can be a valuable tool for progress, state Sen. Christine Kehoe says it's time to rethink how local governments use – and sometimes abuse – their broad powers of condemnation.

The San Diego Democrat has introduced legislation that includes an immediate two-year moratorium on seizing owner-occupied housing under the banner of eminent domain.

In doing so, Kehoe aligns with a growing number of lawmakers – both liberal and conservative – who are demanding a fresh look at eminent domain after a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld a Connecticut city's right to evict middle-class homeowners to pave the way for a waterfront hotel and convention center to support a $300 million research facility for Pfizer.

Led by Kehoe, the Senate Local Government Committee will open a review today of redevelopment law and the impact of the court's June 23 ruling in Kelo v. City of New London.

"Kelo raised a lot of alarm among homeowners. I even heard from my friends telling me 'Jeepers, what gives? Can they take my house?' " Kehoe said.

The answer is an emphatic "no," according to officials representing redevelopment agencies, which are generally extensions of city councils or counties and are armed with eminent domain power.

They said the Supreme Court upheld Connecticut's ability to take property strictly for economic gain. California's law is far more rigorous, requiring a declaration that the property is blighted, among other conditions, officials said

"In California, you must go through very elaborate findings to justify the imposition of a redevelopment plan and the potential use of eminent domain," said Dave Allsbrook, an official at the Centre City Development Corp., which oversees downtown redevelopment in San Diego.

John Shirey, who represents redevelopment agencies statewide, said the decision simply affirmed the status quo.

"There's a hue and cry about how bad things are in California. Yet Kelo changed nothing," Shirey said. "This is not about policy. This is not about fact. This is about a political opportunity."

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court's ruling in the Kelo case has put redevelopment agencies on the defensive nationally. In California, lawmakers are looking to ban the use of eminent domain for any nonpublic purpose, such as hotels and condominiums. Others have introduced measures to protect farmland.

For half a century, municipal governments in California have had the ability to condemn land as long as it is legally defined as blighted and the owner is justly compensated at fair market value. Generally, those governments have exercised their power to obtain land needed for public roads, schools and hospitals.

Over time, however, eminent domain has emerged as a favorite tool to attract private development through cheap land and tax breaks. High-rises sprang up in run-down neighborhoods. Hotels opened as crack houses closed. And tourists took to the streets where prostitutes once walked.

For example, neighbors pleaded with the city of San Diego for help cleaning up two sites in the East Village neighborhood. Petco Park also helped give that area a makeover. A park has replaced a seedy motel in Little Italy.

Without the power of eminent domain, Allsbrook said, the rebirth of urban centers such as downtown San Diego never would have occurred. Shirley argued that eminent domain helps cities provide affordable housing and contain sprawl by encouraging in-fill development.

To critics, however, revenue-hungry governments have seized perfectly acceptable shops and homes in favor of auto malls and hotels that can generate more sales and bed taxes.

In San Diego, Ahmad Mesdaq failed in his highly publicized bid to thwart city efforts to shutter his remodeled Gran Havana Coffee and Cigar Lounge in the historic Gaslamp Quarter and replace it with a hotel.

"All I wanted to do was live the American dream. Is that too much to ask?" said Mesdaq, who is held up by critics of eminent domain as an example of government power run amok.

His is not an isolated case. California City in Kern County is in court defending its condemnation of 15,000 acres to develop a Hyundai test track. Oakland wants to take over two independent auto repair and supply businesses so that a Sears auto shop can open on the site a block away from its parent retail center. And the Cottonwood Christian Center in Cypress was forced into a land swap because the city wanted a Costco instead of a church on the original building site.

Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby said the state must tighten definitions of blight, which he said is too elastic to protect property owners.

"Blight is what they say it is. It's a joke," said Norby, who heads an organization of municipal officials pressing for reforms.

The Supreme Court's Kelo decision, critics contend, will only encourage more abuse.

"The decision blows the doors wide open for any land, in particular ag land, to be condemned by local government for a strip mall," said Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, a La Mesa Republican carrying legislation to protect farms.

Agencies cannot condemn agricultural land if more than 20 percent of it is still productive. But Hollingsworth said cities skirt the law, referring to a previous bid by the city of San Jacinto to take more than 2,300 acres.

Farmland, he said, is "the most vulnerable because it doesn't generate sales tax."

Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Northridge, is carrying a sweeping constitutional amendment to bar government agencies from taking private property unless it is for a public purpose, such as a road or school.

"This has to do with taking from one citizen, usually someone who is politically weak, and giving it to someone else, who is politically well-connected," he said.

Assemblywoman Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Niguel, said: "If public purposes can be defined as any project that increases the local government's tax revenue, who is to say that people's homes cannot be subjected to eminent domain, even if the only purpose is to build an auto mall or a shopping center?"

Kehoe opposes blanket bans, noting that eminent domain is a long, public process.

She proudly points to a reborn City Heights. "Instead of burned out buildings, we have a thriving community," she said. "It's a neighborhood transformed."

http://www.tommcclintock.net/eminentdomain.htm

SCA 15 and ACA 22, the Homeowner and Property Protection Act, will restore the original property rights protections of the American Bill of Rights that were ripped out of the Constitution by the Kelo decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

That decision broke the Social Compact that gives government its legitimacy and opened a new era when the rich and powerful can use government to seize the property of ordinary citizens for private gain. Government may now literally take the house of a person it doesn’t like and give it to a person that it does like. Stripped of all the sophistries and euphemisms, this is what it comes down to.

It used to be that if a widow didn’t want to sell her home to a developer, she didn’t have to. That was the end of the matter, unless the developer sent in a bunch of thugs to beat her up. And, of course, government was there to protect her from the thugs. Now government has become the thug.

This is not a distant or remote threat. There are 6,000 public agencies in California that now have the power to seize your home, pay you pennies on the dollar for it, and then give it to somebody else for their own personal gain and profit.

Sadly, it now falls upon the states to restore the property rights of their citizens that are no longer protected under the Bill of Rights. SCA 15 and ACA 22 restore those rights back to Californians.

What can you do? Start by calling your local senator and assemblyman and find out if they are co-sponsors of SCA 15, and then let your friends and neighbors know. This is vital because you can be sure of this: any public official who has no moral compunction of stealing your neighbor’s home or shop is also perfectly willing to steal yours.

Sincerely,

Tom McClintock

"Blight is what they say it is. It's a joke," said Norby,

This is exactly right. There is a case going on in Oakland right now, where the city condemned (among other buildings) a garage which had a steady stream of customers and was not in the least bit blighted, in order to build housing. There appears to be no real definition of blight. The liberal editorials I keep reading here in CA tell us we are in no danger since we have this "blight" clause, but as the man says, blight is what they say it is. We are not safe.

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