I agree with Mr. Virgin’s view on condemnation. And I don’t think I’m “just being negative” because I hold this view, as a few condemantion advocates have tried to suggest. 🙂
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Seattle PI
BILL VIRGIN
Tuesday, August 1, 2006
Condemnation for eminent domain
By BILL VIRGIN
P-I COLUMNIST
If this newspaper gig doesn’t pan out, maybe I’ll try a new line of work — commercial real estate development comes to mind. One of those big mixed-use high-rise projects would be fun, with glitzy retail, pricy condos and a swank hotel.
And I’ve got just the property in mind for it — yours.
But I don’t know if you want to sell, and even if you did, I don’t know that I want to pay the market price and then some for it. No problem. I’ll simply team up with some local governmental entity, have them condemn the property under eminent domain, under the guise of encouraging economic development and revitalization, and turn it over to yours truly.
Sweet deal for me. Not so hot for you.
The prospects for such scenarios became a little too uncomfortably real last year when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a decision variously referred to as the Kelo or New London case (those being the parties involved), ruled that government could use eminent domain to take over private property, even if the intent was to turn it over to someone else for another private use — a shopping mall, for example.
That decision achieved what is nearly impossible in modern American political life — uniting conservatives and liberals in outrage. Some state and local governments quickly moved to pass laws forbidding the practice, and at least one major bank in the Southeast said it would not provide funding for such projects.
More than a year later, the Kelo/New London decision continues to reverberate. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled last week that a suburb of Cincinnati cannot take private property by eminent domain for a multiuse project, according to The Associated Press, which reported that “the court found that economic development isn’t a sufficient reason under the state constitution to justify taking homes.”
Meanwhile, in Oregon, a state even more fond of initiatives than Washington, a ballot measure on the subject appears headed to voters in November. The measure, according to a summary from the Secretary of State’s Office, “prohibits (a) public body from condemning private real property if (it) intends to convey to private party.”
The Kelo/New London decision created a stir in Washington as well. Attorney General Rob McKenna issued a statement that “the Washington State Constitution prohibits the use of the power of eminent domain to condemn private property for private use and reserves to the judiciary the role in determining what constitutes a public use. The Washington Supreme Court has defined the ‘public benefit’ limitation more narrowly than the definition used by the U.S. Supreme Court in the recently announced Kelo decision.
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“Accordingly, the condemnation of private property for the type of development at issue in the Kelo case would likely be evaluated as a matter of state constitutional law under standards that are potentially more protective of private property rights than those used by the U.S. Supreme Court today.”
That wasn’t terribly convincing or reassuring to legislators, who introduced a flurry of bills and resolutions in the last session essentially saying, “Darn it, we’re not kidding about this.” None of them passed.
William Maurer, executive director of the Institute for Justice’s Washington chapter, says the skepticism isn’t misplaced. (The institute, a libertarian legal foundation, has made private property and eminent domain one of its core issues.) “Government and the courts have been pushing the envelope” as to what would pass muster under the Washington Constitution, he says.
Both have some vague and broad language with which to work, he adds, such as defining areas as “blighted’ under an urban renewal law, or the determination of whether the taking is a necessity and the purpose is truly public (the former issue was at the center of a recent controversy in which the city of Renton wanted to use eminent domain to redevelop areas of the Highlands it considered blighted).
Although Washington doesn’t have Oregon’s statewide vote on the issue to look forward to, at least one county will get to weigh in on it. The Pierce County Charter Review Commission has sent to the November ballot a provision that would prevent the county from exercising eminent domain for economic development.
Eminent domain is hugely controversial enough when it involves projects with at least the hint of public purpose to them, as Washingtonians can attest — Sea-Tac Airport’s third runway, the Seattle monorail and Sound Transit’s light rail, for example. People in this country still take a dim view of expropriation of a person’s abode, no matter how humble or “blighted,” and it’s not just because of the emotional pangs that can be raised.
Continue to cheapen eminent domain by extending it to clearly private uses, and those who do so could wind up sinking not only those projects, but also the highways, water lines and the like for which government could build a rational justification.
P-I reporter Bill Virgin can be reached at 206-448-8319 or billvirgin@seattlepi.com. His column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Hey Randy, just wanted to send an LJ html tip your way…
If you want your links to read something other than (Read More…) you can type
lj-cut text=”whatever you want the text to be”
But remember the little <> brackets on each end!