Hope this doesn't spread to our Canadian Crooks(oh I mean politicians)

[greenvalley]

High court OKs personal property seizures
Majority: Local officials know how best to help cities

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses -- even against their will -- for private economic development.

It was a decision fraught with huge implications for a country with many areas, particularly the rapidly growing urban and suburban areas, facing countervailing pressures of development and property ownership rights.

The 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes to generate tax revenue.

Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.

"The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including -- but by no means limited to -- new jobs and increased tax revenue," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."

Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Connecticut, filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.

New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.

The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press

 

[qwerty]

Where have you been this is already happening here? They're 'taking' houses in the Pitt Meadows area(not sure where exactly) to build a new Golden ears bridge.

 

[Herb_The_Perb]

Where have you been this is already happening here? They're 'taking' houses in the Pitt Meadows area(not sure where exactly) to build a new Golden ears bridge.

Yes, but a bridge is a "public purpose", while a private office building isn't.

 

[LonelyGhost]

Yes, but a bridge is a "public purpose", while a private office building isn't.

even worse is that in the US 'property rights' are part of their Constitution ... here in Canada, we have no property rights at all ... the Crown owns the land irrespective of our 'purchase' of it and there are lots of limits as to what we can do with our 'property' and not too many limits on the Crown taking it back.

despite the right-wing wha-wha-wha about the NDP policies, the BEST thing they ever did was put the ALR into place ... otherwise the whole lower mainland would be one row of condos from West Van to Hope!

the situation noted in the US may not survive a Constitutional challenge in court, but even Victoria is considering a by-law to fine properly owners for letting their property go to waste ...

 

[sirlickheralot]

I can't believe it was the liberal left wing members of the US Supreme Court who are responsible for this ridiculous decision, I thought it was supposed to be the right wing republicans who stole from the poor and middle class to give to the rich. I can't believe I'm actually siding with George Bush on an issue, I feel so dirty.

 

[dittman]

LOL sometimes sirlickheralot we have to hold our noses. Yeah when the decision came out, i was not surprised about who voted for and who voted against it. What you have to understand is that most cases heard by the supreme court doesnt effect the vast majority of people. This one hits home to most people and if they play their cards right the republicans can make gains in the mid term elections everything else would take a back seat to it. especially if the thing in conn. turns viloent., and some one gets killed.

Let the revo;ution begin.

 

[Sonny]

no constitutional challenge

Dittman I'm not sure a Constitutional challenge can be made once the Supreme Court has made a ruling, but I hope so, this is a bad bad precedent.

For exisiting law, when the Supreme Court speaks, it is the end of the line. There is no one further to appeal to; it is final word on the interpretation of a specific law.

State Legislatures can create new law to deal with the land issue within their own jurisdiction by defining what is "public use".

Wow, another thin edge of the wedge, another step down a slippery slope. One after another, personal freedoms and rights are vanishing in the land of "the free". Better not have a Muslim name, be of Mid-East descent, and better not own a house on prime commercial development land (which is anywhere money thinks it can make more money!!).

 

[greenvalley]

This is not about roads or bridges. Here is one part of the US already acting on this decision. I guess since this is a public use marina, anyone in freeport can use it for free LOL

Freeport moves to seize 3 properties
Court's decision empowers the city to acquire the site for a new marina
By THAYER EVANS
Chronicle Correspondent

FREEPORT - With Thursday's Supreme Court decision, Freeport officials instructed attorneys to begin preparing legal documents to seize three pieces of waterfront property along the Old Brazos River from two seafood companies for construction of an $8 million private boat marina.
map

The court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that cities may bulldoze people's homes or businesses to make way for shopping malls or other private development. The decision gives local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.

"This is the last little piece of the puzzle to put the project together," Freeport Mayor Jim Phillips said of the project designed to inject new life in the Brazoria County city's depressed downtown area.

Over the years, Freeport's lack of commercial and retail businesses has meant many of its 13,500 residents travel to neighboring Lake Jackson, which started as a planned community in 1943, to spend money. But the city is hopeful the marina will spawn new economic growth.

"This will be the engine that will drive redevelopment in the city," City Manager Ron Bottoms said.

Lee Cameron, director of the city's Economic Development Corp., said the marina is expected to attract $60 million worth of hotels, restaurants and retail establishments to the city's downtown area and create 150 to 250 jobs. He said three hotels, two of which have "high interest," have contacted the city about building near the marina.

"It's all dependent on the marina," Cameron said. "Without the marina, (the hotels) aren't interested. With the marina, (the hotels) think it's a home run."

Since September 2003, the city has been locked in a legal battle to acquire a 300-by-60-foot tract of land along the Old Brazos River near the Pine Street bridge as well as a 200-foot tract and 100-foot tract along the river through eminent domain from Western Seafood Co. and Trico Seafood Co.

Eminent domain is the right of a government to take private property for public use upon payment of the fair market value.

The tracts of land would be used for a planned 800- to 900-slip marina to be built by Freeport Marina, a group that that includes Dallas developer Hiram Walker Royall. He would buy the property from the city and receive a $6 million loan from the city to develop the project.

Freeport Marina would then invest $1 million in the project and contribute a 1,100-foot tract of land, valued at $750,000, to it before receiving the loan.

Western Seafood spokesman Wright Gore III said the wholesale shrimp company was disappointed with the Supreme Court decision, but believes the ruling does not apply to the city's eminent domain proceedings.

He said there is a provision in state law that allows residents of a city to a circulate a petition to call a vote on whether the city can take property using eminent domain.

"(This) is far, far from over," Gore said. "(We) would have liked to have seen a victory on the federal level, but it is by no means a settled issue."

Gore said Western Seafood's 30,000-square-foot processing facility, which sits on the 300-by-60-foot tract, would be forced to close if the land were seized.

That facility earns about $40 million annually, and Western Seafood has been in business in Freeport since 1946, he said.

City officials, however, have said the marina will still allow Western Seafood and Trico Seafood, which did not return telephone calls or e-mail Thursday, to operate their facilities.

In August, U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent ruled against a lawsuit filed by Western Seafood seeking to stop the city's eminent domain proceedings. The seafood company then appealed its case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, a request that initially was denied.

The appeals court then decided it would take the case, but not rule on it until after the Supreme Court made a ruling on the New London, Conn., case.

Chronicle reporter Richard Stewart contributed to this report.

 

[Makhno]

Today's National Post had this interesting commentary on this significant erosion of "property rights" in the bastion of free enterprise.
____________________________________________

Another nail in the coffin of U.S. property rights
Richard Salsman
Financial Post
Tuesday, June 28, 2005

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that it is perfectly legitimate for a local government to seize private property, pay a below-market price and hand it over to another private citizen or company that claims it can do more with the property -- i.e., better develop it and pay more taxes to the local government. Heretofore, Supreme Court decisions in such "eminent domain" cases upheld government "takings" only if they were for a "public use" and only if "just compensation" was paid for the property taken (in accord with the "public use" clause in the fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution).

Now, the high court asserts, government may steal private property in the United States for any reason whatever, so long as the thief mouths such incantations as "public purpose," "the public good" or "the "common good."

In principle, private property rights no longer exist in America.

For decades, these rights have been diminished; now it is only a matter of time before they are wholly dissipated.

According to the court's majority opinion, American governments need only claim their takings will boost economic development or tax revenues. This position evades centuries of historical experience demonstrating that private property protection has been an essential prerequisite of economic development and prosperity. It also ignores the fact that most taxes themselves constitute a taking. The court's perverse ruling endorses a wider government takings power -- on the grounds that such power would assist government in taking (taxing) more property than it does already. And of course, the ruling came from a branch of the government -- the same government that in recent years has dared to accuse Wall Street and businessmen of abusive "conflicts of interest." Is there no such conflict when government condones government theft?

It's worth understanding two other perverse aspects of the court's majority opinion: It justified the taking on the grounds that the municipality (the city of New London, Conn.) had a "comprehensive plan," and it held that the government need not even argue or guarantee that its takings will foster net economic benefits or greater tax revenues. Now, what "plans" could be more "comprehensive" than, say, five-year plans for an entire nation, like those contrived by central planners in the former Soviet Union? According to the court, the bigger, more comprehensive and more audacious the government plan, the more likely it will pass judicial muster in the future, and the more it can entail unjust takings.

Thus the court now not only condones unjust takings at the municipal level, it positively invites still broader schemes of planning and takings at the state and federal levels. Worse, such central planning need not even pretend to engender net economic benefits. Take note, would-be central planners and ex-Soviet commissars: There's now a welcome place for you -- in America.

In its majority opinion, the court also claimed that specific takings of private property for the sole benefit of politically connected private parties were justified so long as the result was likely to be an upgrade, not a downgrade, of the property in question. Yet for every piece of property anyone could legitimately argue that another holder could "upgrade" its current use and economic yield. Thus every piece of property in the United States is effectively now up for grabs. And what about future assessments of what might constitute an "upgrade" or "downgrade" of property? As things stand, we already know of environmental groups who've claimed that a new factory, built on previously unoccupied land, constitutes a "downgrade" of the land -- the same ones that have called for tearing down hydro-electric dams so salmon might again swim upstream, on the grounds that this entails a land "upgrade." How long will it be before some U.S. court validates the destruction of existing industrial structures by citing an "environmental impact statement" asserting a property "upgrade?"

One might suspect that the court's close decision (5-4) was made possible only by the existence of wealth-hating justices previously appointed by Democrat presidents. Not so. Three of the five justices who joined the majority opinion were previously appointed by Republican presidents: Justice Stevens (appointed by president Ford in 1975), Justice Kennedy (appointed by president Reagan in 1988) and Justice Souter (appointed by president Bush in 1990).

In the United States today, the unconstitutional takings of property for the benefit of politically favoured private parties isn't limited to takings of acreage and homes. Since 1926, the courts have condoned zoning restrictions that impair property values. Starting even earlier, but especially since 1970, environmental regulations have inflicted similar harm. The courts now also routinely abrogate and transfer the hard-earned patents of pharmaceutical (and other) firms. Anti-trust law steals private property (see the theft of part of Microsoft's proprietary computer code and its mandated transfer to rivals) or depresses its value.

The Byzantine array of decrees stemming from just one recent law, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, already has cost shareholders $1.4-trillion (14% of GDP) -- and more costs are coming. But the latest assault on property, condoned last week by the U.S. Supreme Court, is one of the more egregious assaults in U.S. history. Until and unless judicial philosophy improves, this ruling's wealth-depressing impact is likely to be felt for many decades.