Incentives are as follows:
Renters would receive $5,250. Business owners would be paid fair market value plus $10,000.
Homeowners would receive a flat rate of $22,500 in addition to fair market value.
Limited moving expenses were also included in the package. But those were only available to people who didn't take their cases to court.
The number of condemnations, however, suggests that the incentives weren't effective in many cases.
Mr. Rivera said condemnations are inevitable no matter what incentives the city gives.
"In these types of cases, there are always going to be those who will hold out for additional dollars," the council member said.
Attorney Bob Cohen, who is representing some of the property owners, said the city gave many of his clients little incentive to sell.
He said he represents the owners of some rental properties who were counting on that monthly revenue for their retirement.
Most homeowners can't afford to re-build or buy in that area with this incentive package.
A stadium does not equal public use. This is an abuse of power for a vanity project.
Using eminent domain probably is not a good idea when the people whose homes you are seizing have weapons.
More of a reason for GWB to nominate JRB for Supreme Court!
Since this stadium falls under "public use," can I sit on the 50 yard line Saturday afternoon and barbecue a hot dog and drink a beer?
They took the wrong tack. Primary use should have been for a shelter in a time of disaster. Yeah, that'd work. ;/)
Love them Cowboys, but this ain't right
The "offers" have nothing to do with the issue.
A stadium for a multimillion $ private corporation, sports team, does not constitute public use.
Dozens of economic history studies have been done that show that the local taxpayers never get back the $$ they invest in grand stadiums for private sports teams, except decades after the public was supposed to be repaid.
The reason is that the amount of annual income/revenue gain to the locality has never been what any of the stadium promoters said it would be. Never.
Publicly built/funded stadiums for major sports teams are no more than economic-political blackmail based on false premises.
Premise one - they need public support to build the stadiums. False. If that were true, then they could not afford the multi-million dollar salaries for players, and the owners would not all be multi-millionaires themselves. And if it is a good venue, economically, then there really is no problem for the team to obtain commercial bank financing. But banks have different standards than politicians and that would crimp the ROI the team owners want for themselves. Politicians are more generous with your money than banks are with theirs.
Premise two - they can build the stadium anywhere. False. They will build it where it is economically advantageous to them. But that would never be in the middle of nowhere because without the TV broadcast rights there's not enough money in it - TV viewers are not going to keep watching games played in empty stadiums. So, unless they finance the stadium themselves, they will blackmail some large city into the venture and play-off different cities against each other.
Premise three - Local revenue. The blackmail only works because the politicians promise the public what they cannot deliver - revenues from the team will pay off the public investment in a certain amount of time and after that it will continue to generate great income to the city. But they never have, ever. The stadiums get tax rebates usually, so right away local property owners will wind up paying more than if the stadium property was fully taxed. Most of the payroll is with the teams and most of the people connected to the team do not live in town and do not spend their money in town. The TV networks and the team owners receive the bulk of the large money and most of their money does not stay in town either. Per square foot of space - land or building - sports stadiums create far less permanent, fixed local jobs than any other industrial or commercial enterprise of the same size. And, their temporary but huge game-attendance creates traffic conditions that actually increase commercial transportation costs in the surrounding local area.
Premise four - they will "attract" other businesses. There are very few neighborhoods around a major stadium where the stadium alone has brought in alot of additional businesses and few stadium neighborhoods are considered areas that people desire to go to for reasons other than a game. Most stadium areas become single-venture areas that are deserted when there is not a game. The economic magnet never happens. The hotel/resturant business is helped far less by stadiums than other types of tourist venues because most of any additional business comes from the teams, not the fans.
I wish there was a league of major American city governments where they jointly told the sports teams to pay 100% of their own money for their stadiums and where the economics was understood well enough that the mayors did not give in to blackmail. Some big cities might then lose teams for purely economic reasons. That's O.K., they shouldn't worry or cave-in to pressure, there are greater economic uses that the land can be put to.
gee, how about nuking the old stadium in Urving, and building a new one in it's place?
I guess that's thinking too far outside the box.
Just another reason for me to hate and not watch professional sports.
Let the owners and PRIVATE financers of the stadium negotiate one on one with each property owner in the free market. No government involvement