CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Eminent Domain Gone Wild

Riviera Beach, Florida is located across the inlet from Palm Beach. According to the Los Angeles Times, Riviera Beach is "mostly black" and "blue-collar."

The community's the mayor and other elected leaders want to move about 6,000, of the towns 32,000 residents, tear down their homes and use the emptied 400-acre site to build a waterfront yachting and residential complex for the well-to-do.

More fuel for the debate prompted by the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling allowing New London, Connecticut, to force homeowners to sell their properties for a private development. Is this area of Riviera Beach truly suffer from "slum and blighted conditions" making the proposed "redevelopment" necessary "in the interest of public health, safety, morals and welfare?" Or is this, as a Florida state legislator put it, reverse Robin Hood - robbing the poor to benefit the rich?

House Votes To Protect Private Property

The Associated Press reports the House voted 376-38 to restrict the seizure of private property for use by private developers.

Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2005 would withhold federal money from state and local governments that use powers of eminent domain to force businesses and homeowners to give up their property for commercial uses. All federal economic development funds would be cut off for two years for states and localities that use economic development as a rationale for property seizures.

The U.S. Supreme Court's June decision in Kelo v. City of New London, allowed the city to take several homes for a commercial development. This decision was not surprising to most of the land use lawyers and municipal officials I know. The firestorm of criticism of the decision from such a broad range of private property, civil rights, farm and religious groups is surprising. The New London takings are widely seen as an abuse of eminent domain. The Fifth Amendment's "takings clause" provides for the taking of private property, with fair compensation, for public use. Many fail to see the "public use" of taking of private property for a commercial development like the one in New London.

The result of the rollcall vote is in the extended post, courtesy of the Associated Press. 157 Democrats, 218 Republicans and one Independent voted for the legislation. 36 Democrats and two Republicans voted against the bill.

New London Divorces Its Development Agency

New London, Connecticut, which brought us the infamous Kelo case confirming that homes could be taken for a private development project, has divorced itself from the agency implementing the development:

The council voted 6-0 Monday night to revoke the designation of the New London Development Corp. as the city's "implementing agency" for its Fort Trumbull development. The agency has guided the $73 million state-funded project since its inception in 1998.

The New London Development Corp. may have the won the battle in the Supreme Court, but it has been losing the public opinion war ever since.

State and local officials were upset when the agency ordered the homes vacated and demanded back rent from the Trumbull residents still living on the property that the developer wants for a hotel and office space. It took a request from Governor Rell to get the orders to vacate rescinded.

According to the Associated Press, New London's council also demand the agency transfer title to all its real estate in the project area to the city.

What a mess.