I don't ordinarily like eminent domain, but it seems that she did get a fair deal -- an amount well above the appraised value, plus the house is going to be picked up and moved. I'd feel differently if the developers and the city tried to low ball her, but maybe I just can't see what she's so bitter about.
My late aunt was offered a generous amount of money for her house for a commercial development and an acesss road or two. She declined, and the development and the roads were built around her house. The house really became unliveable what with traffic, noise and what not. When my aunt died, the property was sold for practically nothing (the house was torn down). All that resistance for naught.
The big difference here is that your aunt had a choice, whether it was the right one or not is not the point.
But it was her choice.
Eminent domain is required to be for a public USE, not "purpose". Clarence Thomas was crystal clear on this in his dissenting opinion.
Offering a "fair price" is immaterial. Property ownership means that the owner is supposed to have the right to keep or sell their property, except where the property must be taken for a public USE. Increasing the tax base is NOT a public use. If she held onto the property and later regretted it - that's HER fault. But she was not allowed to exercise her ownership discretion. She was forced to sell to a developer.
Look at it this way... I am willing to petition the government to give me your paycheck because I will pay them more in income taxes. They agree, because they get more money. We will give you an amount equal to what you are making RIGHT NOW for the rest of your career, even though it will cost me some money in the short term. But I get to pocket any raises you get, but you will have a guaranteed income equal to your current take-home (provided you keep working).
Would you take the deal?
Hypothetically, suppose your house is "appraised" at $144,000, but it would cost you 3 times that much to get a comparable house in a decent neighborhood. Then let's suppose a developer wants to develop the area, and the value of the land where your house sits after the development would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 million. You are offered a "fair" price of $445,000 which is three times the "appraised" value, but only a breakeven amount for you to replace the home, and less than a third of the true value of the property to the developer. You decide (as would be your right if private property rights mean anything) that the home is worth more than they are offering, and you refuse to sell. So the developer gets the government to come in and take your property for less than you are willing to sell it so that they can have it for their development.
It is always rather amusing when otherwise conservative people decide something is a "fair deal" for someone else's property. Private property is a fundamental right and principle of conservatism. For government to use eminent domain to take property from one private party in order to give or sell it to another private party is completely inexcusable.
If she were being moved for a freeway, power lines, canals, or a new city hall then none of us would be saying it's unconstitutional. It might not be nice, but it is allowed for in the Constitution.
We have a problem in that eminent domain was invoked not for public use, but to hand over to a private developer. It used to be that crooked developers had to send guys over with baseball bats or turn off the heat and electricity to evict the old ladies from their apartments. Now they just use the city to do it.
That was a 2000 appraisal. What would the value of it be now, I wonder?
I don't think you understand the was offered the ~122,000 back in 2000. The only reason she got ~422,000 in 2005-6 was because the appraised value of the land had gone up. The time the property was tied up in the courts is the reason the land rose in value. IIRC the land development board went back to court after she lost at the SCOTUS to try to pay her the original $122,000, and just as an aside I bet the original $122,000 was low to begin with.
I don't ordinarily like eminent domain, but it seems that she did get a fair deal -- an amount well above the appraised value, plus the house is going to be picked up and moved. I'd feel differently if the developers and the city tried to low ball her, but maybe I just can't see what she's so bitter about.
In a free society, property is worth what the seller is willing to sell to a willing buyer not what a third person declares.