Eminent Domain
Here’s one for Uncle: the Anaheim City Council has banned the use of eminent domain for purposes of taking property from one citizen or business and giving it to another. The new City Council Policy No. 220 reads as follows:
It is the policy of the City of Anaheim that the power of eminent domain not be used by the City Council or Redevelopment Agency to acquire property from private parties, for the express and immediate purpose of conveying such property to any other private person or entity for commercial uses, when there is no public purpose for the acquisition except the generation or increase of sales tax or property tax revenues to the City.
This can serve as a model for other cities, or better yet, states.
November 19th, 2004 at 5:26 pm
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Good news in the Eminent Domain front
|By SayUncle|
XRLQ alerts us to an eminent domain ban in Anaheim: It is the policy of the City of Anaheim that the power o [...]
November 19th, 2004 at 11:24 am
Eminent Domain: Are We Seeing a Paradigm Shift?
It’s looking good for the restoration of property rights in the court of public opinion. Here’s one small example, courtesy of damnum absque injuria…
November 19th, 2004 at 11:31 am
As a planner I have mixed feelings about this. I see teh benefit of eminent domain, but agree that it has been abused in some cases. I think it’s a difficult task balancing private property rights with the common good.
Keep in mind that the need to acquire land for commercial development is not soley due to private developers’ desire to turn a profit. Prop 13 caused the fiscalization of land use, which causes cities to fight among themselves for retailers and go out of their way to zone land for tax-revenue-producing uses.
November 19th, 2004 at 12:01 pm
Doesn’t that just put into print what the Eminent Domain thing was originally intended?
November 19th, 2004 at 12:53 pm
Not really. Courts have been a bit more lenient as to what they will accept as a “public use,” in some cases, merely taking property from one owner and giving it to another who will pay more taxes.
November 19th, 2004 at 11:01 pm
One of my biggest charges is a constitutional amendment limited the eminent domain powers of government to cases of insurection or foreign invasion. There is no justification for the government coercing a citizen out of his land, whether they “compensate” him or not, Patrick. The “common good” is a nefarious term that can only be defined by the State. If the state deems it in the common good to destroy property rights, which are our most important liberties once we move past the right to life, then the individual no longer is sovereign.
November 20th, 2004 at 2:17 am
As the article itself says, a policy adopted by one council can easily be reversed at a later date.
November 20th, 2004 at 7:13 am
Hands off
With Kelo v. City of New London on the Supreme Court’s docket this term, the city of Anaheim, California is actually taking steps to avoid this sort of thing in…
November 20th, 2004 at 10:30 pm
“There is no justification for the government coercing a citizen out of his land, whether they “compensate” him or not, Patrick.”
I respectfully disagree. Let me ask you. The freeway is bottle necked. It needs to be expanded. The only way to widen it is to use eminent domain to acquire the land. A few hundred people might have to be relocated. Meanwhile, the widening of the freeway would serve hundreds of thousands of commuters every day. Business and industry functions thereby benefitting the entire region.You don’t think that’s justified?
I tend to think nefarious is a nefarious word.
November 21st, 2004 at 12:50 pm
Chase, something you wrote has been preying on my mind since I read it. You seem to dismiss the notion of the “common good” rather easily. I find this sort of libertarian thinking dangerous and hurtful to the life of the community. The lone cowboy never built a civilization, a hospital, a university, a city.