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"From a legal standpoint," the institute said, the worst states in which to live for property owners seeking to avoid condemnation are New York, Missouri and Kansas.

Court: County can make landowners sell property for economic growth
04/19/2003 - The Associated Press
Kansas counties may force private landowners to sell property to be used for industrial and economic development projects, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday. The decision was the first by the court on whether counties may exercise the power of eminent domain -- often used when land is needed for roads or utility lines -- to acquire land specifically for economic development.
In its unanimous ruling, the court said such forced sales to counties are legal under the 1974 "home rule" statute, which lets counties govern their affairs without needing to have every power listed in state law.
Friday's decision arose from a case in Shawnee County, where the county commission passed a resolution last year to acquire 400 acres south of Topeka for an industrial park. Target Corp. plans to build a distribution center on part of the site.
Nine of the affected property owners sold their land, but Robert Tolbert and his company, General Building Contractors LLC, refused to sell seven acres they owned.
A judge affirmed the county's right to take Tolbert's land by eminent domain, for which Tolbert and the company received $329,000. Tolbert's appeal resulted in Friday's Supreme Court ruling on counties' authority to take land for economic development purposes.
"Counties have and may exercise the power of eminent domain to acquire property for industrial or economic development purposes," retired Justice Edward Larson wrote for the court.
The Supreme Court also clarified that the proper procedure calls for a county commission to pass and publish a resolution stating its intent to take a property by eminent domain.
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/041903/bus_court.shtml

States with the worst record of private-use condemnations, the firm said, are California, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan and Ohio. Runners-up include Pennsylvania, Florida and New Jersey.

Here in Stockton, California, the city acquired a city block to build "The Gateway to the City" project. This block was located at the major offramp to the downtown area on the Cross Town Freeway and was on a major route from the Stockton Airport into town. The argument was that Stockton needed a more impressive entry to the city that reflected our mutli-ethnic background. It would, in the words of one of our local re-development types, "be a source of pride and a showcase for our city."

Displaced through the city's power of Eminent Domain were several low-income residential hotels (eyesores but providing affordable housing for people who could not otherwise be housed), several small businesses including a grocery, a bar, a liquor store, and one of the finest Mexican Restaurants in the city... well established and popular... that had been operated for years by a Immigrant Mexican family (legal immigrants, 2nd generation).

After forcing the owners to shut down and sell, razing the buildings and turning the block into an empty lot, the city sold the land to a developer for development of the Gateway Project that would be the welcoming sight to visitors to Stockton.

What was built on the site? A MacDonalds and a Gulf Service Station mini-mart! Both facades have a California Mission appearance... but where is the "source of pride?" And does Stockton REALLY want to showcase our city as being a place that is so generic as to consider a MacDonalds and a Gulf Service Station Mini-mart a showcase to impress tourists and visitors?

If the "Gateway Project" was to feature commercial establishments, what better business could have been chosen but the already established Mexican Restaurant? It could have been upgraded, beautified and made the centerpiece of a truly impressive block of shops of all the ethnicities that Stockton is home to... instead we got a gas station and a fast-food emporium... so generic that it says nothing. Eminent Domain... bah.

Here in Pennsylvania, we had a near-miss in terms of emminent domain. A family owned a building in town, which happened to be next to the Public Library. The Borough coveted the building, first as a location for a new Borough Building, then as space to expand the public library.

The family didn't want to sell - the building is always fully rented to commercial ventures. The Borough did all its research preparing to take the land by emminent domain. The only hitch was when they found out the had to buy out the leases of the current tenants and find them comparable commercial space - the leases had just been renewed for 7-10 years. The Borough didn't want to wait out the leases getting closer to expiration, and made an offer to the family that was at least marginally acceptable to them (although below fair market value). I guess once you've been told it'll be taken, an offer may look better than it did before.

Most citizen's of the town wanted the library moved to where there was parking, but the Borough was determined not to let it out of downtown (another example of their arrogance).

The Borough never saw anything wrong with the use of emminent domain to get what they wanted - a state of the art public library in the heart of a college town. They only saw the price would be higher than they wanted to pay. They had bought all the properties surrounding this one over previous decade at top market prices, but didn't want to pay that for the final "gem".

Our property rights are being eroded daily through governments arrogant use of emminent domain as well as the power to regulate. While there is a level of regulation that is necessary for health and safety, most of what we see today is regulation in pursuit of building a utopian "community", to control where and how people live. Emminent Domain to them is just another tool in the toolbox to use in building the perfect community...

The prospects for rolling back the abuse of the eminent domain power are bleak. Communities all over the United States are accelerating their use of it. Sometimes the condemned property is put to public use, but frequently condemnation is a conduit to private hands, as was the case with that church in California whose name I've forgotten.

Here in New York, a lot of condemnations are rationalized by "open space" and similar conservationist / environmentalist pleadings. A private organization, the Nature Conservancy, has been involved in a growing fraction of these, possibly the majority. The Nature Conservancy receives state funds for the maintenance of a number of properties condemned under environmental initiatives.

Watch for ever newer and more ingenious redefinitions of "public use." This is the country, after all, that claimed that to grow corn on one's own land and feed it to one's own hogs constitutes "interstate commerce."

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason:
http://palaceofreason.com

Take Richard Daley and the case of The Pacific Garden Mission. The PGM has been at its current location just south of the Loop in downtown Chicago since I was a boy and visited it with my parents to listen to the live radio broadcast of "Unshackled". Since those days that part of Chicago has become increasingly regentrified so that now the PGM property has become very valuable and is right in the middle of a very, very hot area, a couple of blocks from the Chicago Public Library, a few blocks from the Loop, a few blocks from Grant Park, the Chicago Art Institute, lots of theaters, the museum campus housing the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, and Adler Planetarium, as well as the former Meigs Field. Daley "offered" PGM $7 million to relocate to some warehouse in another part of the city. PGM refused, saying it wanted $28 million (probably more in line with projected property values). Daley responded with a suit to have the property seized on his own terms. So much for people being able to hold out for the highest dollar for their own property. Little city Napoleons will just use the power of government to spoliate the citizenry:

From The Sun-Times:

Mayor Daley took potshots at Chicago's oldest and largest homeless shelter Wednesday for standing in the way of a long-stalled expansion at Jones College Prep High School.

Daley said the city has made a generous offer to relocate the 126-year-old Pacific Garden Mission, 646 S. State, and it ought to be accepted.

The mission has agreed to make the move from the fast-growing South Loop neighborhood, where the mayor lives, to a 205,000 square foot warehouse at 1001 S. Clinton that has no residential neighbors. But officials are holding out for more money.

"Six million dollars is a lot of money. Give me a break . . . This is taxpayers' money. I could give 'em $100 million, but I'm sorry," the mayor said.

"We're gonna relocate them . . . We've had a number of locations for them. We have been working with them for many years. But they're very successful. They have a huge trust account. Find out how much they have in their trust account."

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As for the city's relocation offer, McCarrell seems resigned to let the courts decide. Last month, the Chicago Board of Education filed a lawsuit against the mission to try to break a stalemate that has prevented Jones College Prep from building a $15.5 million gym and library on the mission site.

McCarrell argued that the city's offer "doesn't begin to pay anywhere near what it would cost to move this ministry to another location without hindering what we do and the outreach we have. The owner is asking over three times that amount just for the building."