property rights lost

[chelidon]

Pay attention to this one if you're a property owner, or may be someday. What it essentially says is that your local government can seize your property at any time, for any reason they deem sufficient, including because a developer wants what you have. Aside from the injustice issues (and I agree with O'Conner in her dissent), this makes it all the more important to pick a place to live where you trust your local government, if at all possible.

Full story: High court OKs personal property seizures (subhed: 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.

Comments

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

I can understand why they voted the way they did, and why cities are so eager to have this ruling on their side. It certainly has a ton of room for abuse, but when I heard the ruling (I was in the newsroom at the time and we were gearing up to write a story based on it) I knew exactly why it was done.

To get eminent domain, cities have to prove that it's for the public good. The trouble, at least in California, is that while property taxes generate HUGE amounts of revenue, that money no longer goes to local municipalities, as it ought to, but to the state to redistribute. I can see the logic in that, too, since some portions of California produce much more in property taxes, and you don't want to have inequities in the things property taxes pay for -- like schools.

Except that in lean years, the state KEEPS the majority of the money and doesn't distribute it, meaning local economies have to sustain themselves on sales taxes to pay for things like fire and paramedic services, police, libraries, community facilities, public parks and so on. Which means they begin courting things that generate sales taxes.

This is of course how they can claim that taking someone's property and building a shopping center on it can be considered "for the public benefit." I can see the point of that argument, but I also know from seeing it happen to people in cities I've covered that it's really no fun to have your home or business siezed for this purpose. It can feel incredibly unfair. I'm not sure which side I agree with, though.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

I can understand why the Supremes ruled the way they did, from a legal viewpoint, but pragmatically, I think it's all wrong. Local governments already had as much power as they should have under eminent domain, they didn't need to be given more by a very loose definition of "public" -- revenue generation isn't sufficient rationale, in my mind (and by my personal interpretation of Constitutional law in this case) , to take closely-held personal property, such as home or primary business.

I've had my perspective perhaps somewhat skewed by living the last couple of years in a place with very little in the way of State or County services (and no state income or sales tax, either, for that matter), and so almost all services (and revenue-generation) are local/town-based. Now this type of system probably doesn't scale very well to more population-dense regions, but either way, I think you hit the nail on the head above. The biggest injustices seem to come in when the key decisions are made by people with insufficient connection to the people whose lives are affected by those decisions. In that case, decisions get made more based on abstract principles (maximize local revenue) than upon actual impacts on actual lives.

We're actually dealing with a big issue in New Hampshire right now having to do with education funding and equity, related to exactly what you say above. The State constitution guarantees an adequate education to all children -- what about those towns that choose to chronically underfund education? Tough choices. The first cut at it, redistributing money from affluent "donor" towns to less affluent "recipient" towns, hasn't worked well -- a number of the "recipient" towns who chronically underfunded their schools just reduced their local taxes by the same amount they received from "donor" towns. Insane, by my accounting of it, but they're making a point about local control. Whatever. I made a point of moving into an area that consciously chooses to fund great schools, but then again, I have the mobility to make that choice.

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

I did want to say that one of the benefits of giving cities this right is that, in many cases, people living in a given city (with the exception of perhaps the very biggest) do have access to their public officials, to say, "Hey, I live here. I don't want you to go forward with this project because I will lose my home/business." I've seen city councils be responsive to those kinds of requests in many cases. (Though not all.) Local democracy is one of the few places left where you can have that kind of personal interaction with the people who represent you (or, hopefully, the people you elected to office).

Actually, there are some times I think city officials should listen to their constituents, and some times when I think they should do things that are in the best interest of their constituents, but that's probably a rant for another time.