WTG Ohio SC

[Goomba]

Cronus...

Way, way, waaayyyy off base there, bud...

Do you own a home?  I'm guessing not, based on your position statement.

How you figure the society in general is 'bettered' by another strip mall or office building?  Hospital or school, maybe....but more commercial properties?

Nope...that's just for tax revenue..not the greater good of all mankind.

Eminent Domain is meant to prevent one or two hard cases from blocking the overall improvement of a community, but you need to consider what is actually an overall improvement...strip malls aint it.  For example, a small town needs a new regional medical center to improve healthcare and emergency services for folks who are maybe miles away from medical care, but Old Man Cooter refuses to sell his chicken farm cause he likes the view.  This would be a case where the greater good is pretty apparent, and the resistance to sell is perhaps of questionable rationale.

The problem is (it seems to me) that municipalities have discovered a way to start using this principle to line the municipal coffers with tax money, while also granting political favors to big-money developers for future paybacks.

Lastly...nobody EVER gets more than they would on the open market.  It's the government, for Cods sake...you get raped, and no two ways about it.  And, as has been pointed out...you effectively have little to no appeal.  Take it or leave it, and have a nice day.

It should take an extraordinary and hugely expensive process to force a family off their land for almost any reason.  Lately, rather than getting harder to do, it's become ridiculously easy.

Just wait til they come for YOUR house, and I'll bet you feel differently.

On a different note in general...careful not to confuse sprawl with eminent domain actions.  Sprawl is a direct result of increasing land values in growth zones...quickly enough, a famer's land becomes so valuable to developers, that he can no longer see the fiscal sense in working like a dog from dawn to dusk, when he can make more in one sale than he might in the remainder of his life farming his plot.  As soon as that happens, we promptly bury productive, arable farmland under asphalt and concrete foundations.

I can't imagine a better use of rich, fertile land than another mall parking lot...

[Jackal1]

Originally posted by Cronus
Those guys are stupid, what are they just going to take their homes and make them homeless?
No, they want to build something that will benefit their community and society and they need more area to build it. Whats the problem with that? Besides, they will get paid for their home, maybe they will pay them more than what the house was worth, and they can go out and buy a better one.

Something like this is happening where I live in New London, CT. I don't understand the big deal about it, if the owners are just arrogant or there is another reason towards it.

House and home have two totaly different meanings as far as I`m concerned.
If you have had a home and allready have or you are in the process of raising your children there and spending a lifetime at that home. It is just that....a home.
If you have ever lost a home, you would understand. Worth cannot possibly be put into dollars and cents.

[Mini D]

Originally posted by rpm
I missed? Looks like the ACLU was on the side of the property owner in both cases. That's a bad thing?

They didn't give specifics in the second case. The first case is more coincidence than defending property rights. The ACLU was anti-religious-favoritism there, not anti-eminent domain. Reading things all the way through is a wonderful thing.

[lasersailor184]

This is a pandorras box for property owners. If you let one city seize property for "private development" than all of them can do it and that is more power that I'm not willing to give to a local govt. Next they can start taking family farms and then rezone them for residential development and give it to KB homes to build expensive homes on all for the sake of "development". KB makes money, the city makes money from increased tax revenues but the family that was "forced to sell" got a crap rate for their property because of it's orriginal zoning. Then you add all the possible corruption into the mix and it's scary to think about.

If you read the ammendments, you would see that it says "Private Property."  Nearly everyone automatically thinks land when they see this, but rest assured, it does not mention land at all.  Private Property is just that, anything you own.



The definition of "Private Property" is something which you can do whatever you wish with, without anyone else forcing you to do something else with it.

So when you think about it, and about what the government can do, there's no such thing as Private Property in the United States.

[Hajo]

LOL Ask the American Indian about Manifest Destiny.

We determine it is within our rights to own your land.....ship you to the middle of the desert and take away your livelyhood.

Govts. can come up with some quick rule changes in their favor whenever they see fit. The US Govt. has done it well since it's inception in the late 18th Century.

[LePaul]

It a backwards version of this....I see a lot of neighborhoods cropping up on the appraoch/departure end of runways that have been there since Orville invented the things.  

These idiots are trying to insist on noise abatement or closing of these airports.

Property/homeowner rights are just a mess these days

[Dago]

I am very happy to hear that finally citizens rights to retain their homes and farms is finally be considered as important or more so than a rich developers desire to make money planting endless strip malls accross the country.

[rpm]

Originally posted by Mini D
They didn't give specifics in the second case. The first case is more coincidence than defending property rights. The ACLU was anti-religious-favoritism there, not anti-eminent domain. Reading things all the way through is a wonderful thing.

Coincidence? Really? The ACLU went out hunting for churches to sue? It was a method, likely the most airtight, to the solution.

In the second case the ACLU was a friend of the court and filed a brief as such in support of the property owner.

I'm under no illusion that I will change your "t3h ACLU r t3h suck" opinion. I just think it's a tinfoil hat opinion.

We can agree on one point, reading all the way thru is a wonderful thing. You might want to read up on the ACLU's position on emminent domain.

[Mini D]

Actually, the ACLU isn't suing a church. They're suing the government for favoring a church. And... Yes, the actively look for cases EXACTLY like that.