UPDATES ON EMINENT DOMAIN ISSUES
U.S. Supreme Court Decides
Whether to Hear New York Eminent Domain Abuse Case December 6, 2010 John E. Kramer (703) 682-9320 Arlington, Va.—On Friday,
December 10, the U.S.
Supreme Court is scheduled to decide whether to take Nick Sprayregen’s appeal
and protect his family’s property. You have probably never heard of Nick
Sprayregen, but his legal challenge has the potential to impact the lives of
ordinary Americans more than most cases seeking U.S. Supreme Court consideration Complete
Report at http://www.ij.org/about/3605
and more at
http://www.inversecondemnation.com/inversecondemnation/2010/12/a-very-good-summary-of-the-columbia-eminent-domain-cert-petition-issues.html
New Survey Shows Americans
Still Opposed to Eminent Domain Abuse The U.S.
Supreme Court’s Kelo decision in 2005 was met with public outrage. Years
later, the public is still overwhelmingly opposed to the eminent domain abuse
Kelo authorized. This newly published survey found that 83.5% of
respondents do not think the government should use eminent domain for private
economic development. Read about the new survey here, at The Volokh Conspiracy.
More on Columbia’s
Abuse of Property Rights Posted by Ilya Shapiro
Six weeks ago, Cato filed an amicus brief supporting a challenge to Columbia University’s
strong-armed attempt to condemn and take over certain land in Upper
Manhattan. Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will consider the
cert petition our brief supports, with a decision on whether it hears the case
expected Monday.
In what is probably not a coincidence, then, the Columbia Spectator today
came out with a lengthy feature story
examining the story behind the dispute, controversial “blight” designations and
all. This is excellent student journalism — heck, excellent journalism,
period — and here are some key excerpts (full disclosure: the author
interviewed me for the piece): Since it proposed the expansion, Columbia has
rapidly made deals with property owners and gained control over nearly every
lot in the zone — except for two who have fought to hold on to their land….
And Columbia
has repeatedly said that those parcels, which represent a total of around nine
percent of the expansion zone, are vital to the vision. Eminent domain —
the process by which the state seizes private property for the “public good,”
providing just compensation for the owner — officially came into the picture in
2004, when the University asked the state to consider condemnation.
And here’s the crux of the legal dispute: Some neighborhood
tenants and owners — most no longer in Manhattanville as Columbia continues to break ground and
demolish properties — have strongly contested this blight label. Nuss remembers
a community vibrant enough to support his improvisational group — the No-Neck
Blues Band — local businesses, and his family. He raised his daughter in the
Hint House…. But it’s sometimes hard to believe Nuss is talking about the same
area as other residents who say they agree with the determination of blight…. This
disparity in views on Manhattanville’s conditions touches upon a fundamental
question when evaluating the process that paved the way for Columbia’s
expansion: Was the neighborhood really blighted, and given the process by which
the criteria of blight were determined, was the state’s designation of blight
an appropriate justification for the use of eminent domain for a private
university? My sense is that whatever ”blight” there is was caused by
Columbia itself: “It’s akin to the kid who kills his parents and begs the
court’s mercy for being an orphan,” says Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow with the
Cato Institute, which filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court
supporting the Manhattanville property owners. “You’re creating your own
blight. It doesn’t pass the smell test.” Read the whole thing. http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/more-on-columbias-abuse-of-property-rights/
Pa. high court declines to
hear Highpoint case against York County Dec 6,
2010 York Daily Record York, PA - The
Pennsylvania Supreme Court has declined to consider a claim by Lancaster County
developer Peter Alecxih Jr. that York County owes him $66,000 for the Highpoint
property, which the county took for a park. County solicitor Mike Flannelly told
commissioners at Wednesday morning's meeting that he received word from the
state Supreme Court on Dec. 1. Flannelly said the news effectively marks the
end of an eminent domain dispute that dates back to 2004. Reached by phone
Wednesday, Alecxih said he also considers the decision to be the end of it.
"What are you going to do? It's the Supreme Court," Alecxih said.
"It's in the past and you go on from there." The $66,000 would have
represented the interest on money that the county already paid Alecxih. The
county originally paid Alecxih $2 million in estimated just compensation for
the 79-acre parcel known as Highpoint in Lower Windsor
Township to turn it into
a park. The county later paid him an additional $5.5 million after three new
appraisals valued the land at $7.5 million. But Alecxih argued that still
didn't represent the land's true value, and he took the county to court again.
A county jury determined in 2008 that the value of Highpoint was $17.25
million. The amount became $20.4 million when interest was included. Alecxih
further claimed he was entitled to $66,000 in interest on the delayed
compensation that the county waited to pay. The county disagreed. So did the Commonwealth Court,
which ruled against him last year.
Eminent domain cases York County commissioners Lori Mitrick and Doug Kilgore
condemned land at Highpoint and Lauxmont Farms in Lower Windsor
Township for a park in
2004 and 2005. The Kohr family, who owned Lauxmont Farms, and developer Peter
Alecxih Jr., who owned the 79-acre Highpoint, fought the condemnation in court.
The eminent domain issue sparked controversy around the county as people
debated the ethics of condemnation and the cost to taxpayers.
Mitrick and Kilgore lost their bid for re-election in the
2007 primary, while Commissioner Steve Chronister, who opposed the action, won
re-election. In 2008, a jury awarded
Alecxih $17.25 million -- $20.4 million with interest -- and the county reached
a $23 million settlement with the Kohr family. The settlement with the Kohrs
preserved the Byrd Leibhart site, which contains the burial grounds and the
site of the last village of the Susquehannock Indians. The county park at Highpoint opened in 2007. http://www.ydr.com/ci_16810027
Ratner to Neighborhood: Drop
Dead In
the Footprint : The Battle
over Atlantic Yards Written by Steve Cosson Irondale Theater, 85 S. Oxford Street.
Brooklyn Through December 11 The Civilians theater group performs In the
Footprint: The Battle over Atlantic Yards in the
Irondale Theater in the drafty, bare-boned auditorium of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene,
an old Sunday school space in a building from the 1860’s. It’s a world away
from what’s proposed for 22 acres nearby. On this stage, the Atlantic Yards
Project is a stadium gambit imposed by a developer and his powerful allies
that’s already displaced hundreds of people and won’t create many local jobs or
affordable homes if it’s ever built. Written and directed by Steve Cosson, In
the Footprint also faults local ministers, elected officials, and organizers as
enablers of the project dividing potential local support that could have
stopped it or at least made it more community-friendly. In 90 minutes, it’s a
distillation of the opponents’ side of the Atlantic Yards furor of a few months
ago. The project has since been stalled by a New York
State Supreme Court judge who ruled
that the developer, Forest
City Ratner tried to
fast-track the environmental review process. There’s also doubt whether capital
is available to make the deal sweet enough for Mikhail Prokhorov, the oligarch
described as “Russia’s
richest man” who now owns the New
Jersey Nets. In the play, eminent domain to make way
for private development is a lose-lose situation for locals—displacement
whether the project goes up or not. In the Footprint doesn’t give you all the
facts, but it does pile on the emotions, as residents of the neighborhood where
developers said “no one lived” scramble to save their homes from the 22-acre
stadium project. Actors “costumed” in everyday clothes narrate the battle as
outgunned powerless people who hope that organizing might wring some
concessions from the rich and powerful. The tone turns earnestly fatalistic as
the locals learn how rarely underdogs win those battles. There’s a whimsically
satirical edge to the grim lesson. Brooklyn
borough president Marty Markowitz (the plan’s loudest booster) is a talking
basketball held by an actor with the annoying habit of talking to himself much
of the time. Frank Gehry, who signed on to the project in 2003 and parted
company in 2009, is maligned as the designer of trophy monuments for developers
and politicians. Local leaders who backed the project as an engine of economic
growth are shown either as dupes, opportunists, traitors, or as Franken-folk
combining all three elements. Audiences who followed the dispute will be
familiar with the play’s sentiments, but not with its dramatic architecture.
Steve Cosson structures In the Footprint as a no-budget framework of available
materials for his dozen energetic young performers (none looked over 30) who
play characters speaking, singing, and shouting their lines, with Cosson as the
sole accompanist on piano. The show advances briskly enough to avoid overkill
by tears or speechmaking. If developer Bruce Ratner sees In the Footprint, he
might leave wishing that his Atlantic Yards project were just as streamlined. Inspirational
sources for Cosson’s documentary drama might be the shoestring musicals of
Elizabeth Swados (Runaways, 1978), which premiered after the city almost went
bankrupt and when an East
Village apartment cost
$200 a month.
This activist drama unfolds when a studio in Brooklyn averages more than $2,000 a month. No surprise
that questions from the audience tended toward the desperate “what can we do?”
at a post-performance discussion with Cosson and Tom Angotti, professor of
Urban Policy at Hunter
College. The audience
left the creaky hall with a “wait til next time” anger that echoed the “wait
til next year” chorus of loyal Brooklyn Dodger
fans accustomed to watching their team lose. Let’s not forget that the beloved
Dodgers decamped for a better financial deal in Los Angeles, and Ebbets Field was demolished.
At least that stadium was leveled to make way for a housing project. In the
Footprint laments that affordable housing in Atlantic Yards’ gentrified
neighborhood seems an even longer shot than the Brooklyn
Dodgers winning a World Series. David D'Arcy http://www.archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID=5034
5th Amendment, United States
Constitution
"No person shall
be...deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor
shall private property be taken for public use, without just
compensation."
14th Amendment, United States
Constitution
"...nor shall any State
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of
law..."
Can TransCanada's Keystone Pipeline take private property by
eminent domain?
Answer: Yes, corporate Canadian energy giant, TransCanada,
can effectively take private property from American citizens using the power of
eminent domain. http://ownerscounsel.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html
Arkansas jury awards
property owners largest-ever condemnation verdict
http://ownerscounsel.blogspot.com/2010/11/arkansas-jury-awards-property-owners.html
A GREAT WEBSITE FOR
INFORMATION ON EMINENT DOMAIN THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY. CLICK AND SCROLL DOWN
http://ownerscounsel.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&updated-max=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=50
Can Foreign Nations Claim Eminent
Domain in America? - Fox News ... Can
Foreign Nations Claim Eminent Domain in America? Canada
wants to expand oil pipeline in U.S..
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Farmers, energy interests
clash over pipeline plan - Canadian oil company may seek eminent domain power
to buy rural land along a 170-mile route to a southern Illinois terminal January 06, 2008|By E.A. Torriero, Tribune staff reporter MERNA,
Ill. — Oil from the crude-rich sands of Alberta, Canada, makes its way almost
2,000 miles south by pipeline, headed for American refineries.But a group of
farmers and landowners want to make sure it stops before it gets to this little
town in the center of the state, and their opposition has set off a multifront
battle that involves safety, history, economics and dueling sources of energy. Enbridge
Inc., a Canadian conglomerate, and its affiliates want to build a 170-plus-mile
stretch of pipeline from just outside Pontiac in
Livingston County
to Patoka in Marion
County that would get the
oil to a Downstate terminal. It is a $353 million piece of the company's $2.45
billion expansion push in the Midwest. Landowners
express safety concerns, citing oil spills along Enbridge pipelines in Wisconsin and an explosion that killed two welders
working on a pipeline in northern Minnesota
in November. Others simply don't want to give up rights to land they say has
been in their families since the Civil War. Both sides hope to capitalize on
the high price of petroleum products. Enbridge contends the pipeline will save Illinois consumers more
than $406 million over the next two decades, insulating them against price
spikes in overseas oil. But some of the farmers counter that their land is
already fighting energy dependence by producing corn for the burgeoning ethanol
market. Even Enbridge's north-of-the-border pedigree has come under fire. "Do
we want a foreign company coming in here and taking our land while putting us
at risk for the things we have seen them do elsewhere?" asked Scott
Clement, whose 110 acres of family property would be cut in half by the
pipeline. "What they are trying to do is un-American." Documents are
piling up at the Illinois
Commerce Commission, which plans to hold hearings on the proposal in the coming
months. If landowners fail to accept Enbridge's offer of more than $6,000 per
affected acre, the company wants the power of eminent domain -- the right for
the public good to seize the rich agricultural land. Not since landowners in McHenry County fought a decade ago against a
pipeline and won a battle against eminent domain has an underground project
been so divisive in the state. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-01-06/news/0801050039_1_enbridge-pipeline-plan-eminent-domain
Tiu Won’t Sell Councilman
won’t give up East Wheeling property
December 6, 2010 - By ZACH MACORMAC WHEELING, West Virginia
- City Councilman James Tiu has no intention of selling his property at the
corner of 15th and Wood streets to the city to allow construction of the
planned East Wheeling sports complex, said attorney Teresa Toriseva. And if
city leaders attempt to take Tiu's property through eminent domain, Toriseva
stands ready to oppose the tactic.
"I will see to it that he's protected and treated
fairly as a landowner," she said.
In response to Toriseva's statement, City Solicitor Rosemary
Humway-Warmuth said simply, "I'm glad Toriseva is talking, because I don't
have any comment." http://www.news-register.net/page/content.detail/id/549586/Tiu-Won-t-Sell.html?nav=515