I fought the law and the law won...
Militant bikers are a scourge everywhere.
In Bowling Green, Kentucky, the city wanted to widen a road. They used Eminent Domain to take three contiguous lots from the owner of a local bicycle shop. Gave him pennies on the dollar.
After they were done, they offered two of the lots back to the owner at five times what they had paid. When he balked, the city told him off the record that they would offer them to his competition before putting on the market.
They did that technique up and down the road, and used the proceeds to help pay for the roadwork.
In NY, the codified law requires developers to give property to the municipality for public use in exchange for planning board approval of the development. That’s whats called a “quid pro quo.”
"Just compensation" means that the government should have to pay the full value of the property that the government used to assess property tax upon the owner.
From the article:
It can be an intimidating process for a small-business owner to fight this, and many people probably wouldnt risk it, Mr. Lepper says. I took this on myself because I couldnt afford to run up big legal bills, but I knew the property was worth much more. Hiring his own appraiser and planning expert, Mr. Lepper ultimately won an $82,500 settlement. Still, it was an uncomfortable experience. Im a local businessman. I have to do business here. I didnt want to fight the city.
Not exactly a happy ending, but a just one.
the critical mass folks aren’t content to just logjam traffic once a month now, they impose empty special lanes to congest traffic further.
Statists hate private property (Point 1 in the communist manifesto is the abolition of private property) and plan to take as much of it as possible.
What they can’t take, they burden with laws that prevent the owner from using his property as he sees fit.
Typically, if the benefits of a project exceed the costs people will build the project without government involvement, in a mysterious process called the free market, but more accurately referred to as freedom.
That leaves the government with nothing to do, unless they can dream up a lot of projects whose costs outweigh the benefits. But people wouldn’t vote for those projects unless the politicians lie and claim the benefits are much greater than they really are and also underplay (and, where possible, underpay) the costs.
In Seattle years back Seattle used emanate domain to take this old lady’s house for something, forgot, anyway they didn’t build on it and later sold it to a car dealer so she’s out of her house, was torn down, wasn’t used and then sold.
The author uses a pretty poor example to make his case here. He may not like bike paths, but a public park is a legitimate public use for an eminent domain acquisition. Blurring the line between a Kelo situation and a bike path doesnt help his cause at all.
I have a bad feeling about our property, our whole neighborhood. Last year our city released something they call the 20 year plan. It has the “city center” in a large commercial area just across the highway to the west and a “neighborhood center” just across the highway to the north (we live where two highways cross) lots of city stuff is all around us, big library, city hall. City recreation center, senior center, etc. And they are making noise about a city fine arts center and park....then in October we got our tax valuation for the year, for the first time in 13 years it went down. Looks like bastards are plotting to buy our neighborhood on the cheap.
Bike paths are not used much and they take two lanes of road from a street. They are a net negative wherever they appear.
They're too slow. They don't get out of the way.
I support eminent domain for the construction of these pedestrian/bike paths.
But it must be done fairly and in accordance with the law.
Governments should have to pay, at a minimum, a 20% premium over the value assessed for property tax purposes.