Eminent Domain – Kelo v. City of New London
In a case arising in Connecticut, several homeowners challenged a redevelopment plan that involved 115 land parcels located on approximately 90 acres near the Thames River in New London, Connecticut. The redevelopment plan intended to divide the property into 7 separate parcels which would be developed by private companies. The plan involved the construction of new homes, a hotel and a conference center. The City of New London argued that the redevelopment was a public benefit since it would generate significant tax revenue, create both temporary and permanent jobs through construction, and revitalize the distressed city.
Property owners challenged the plan since they did not believe that the development plan constituted a “public purpose” as required by the state and U.S. Constitution. The Connecticut courts disagreed and permitted the taking of the properties.
The United States Supreme Court agreed to review the decision to determine whether the economic development plan meets the requirements of the United States Constitution. In short, the primary issue is what are the limits under the “public use” requirement of the United States Constitution when the government takes land for private economic development.
It appears that most people are not opposed to redevelopment plans for inner-city projects that will seek to improve blighted areas. In addition, projects that involve a direct public use (i.e., new schools and road widenings) also appear to be favored by most people. However, the type of plan that causes the most concern are those that seek to expend the tax base and new create jobs. Under this scenario, the line between public use and private benefit becomes blurred.
The case is very important to New Jersey property owners filing redevelopment plans for several reasons. First, there are many redevelopment plans on the drawing board which seeks to increase the tax base just as in New London. Second, New Jersey mayors are under tremendous pressure to lower property taxes and are consistently chasing “ratables” high valued properties which provide the income to local government. As a result, many of the redevelopment plans seek to create new ratables. Finally, increased open space purchases reduce the available land for developers. As a result, many developers will look to redevelopment projects as a means to remain in business.
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US Supreme court is a senile court. They should be fired for lack of active cells in the brain to understand our constitution…
Shame on the Supreme Court, of course, but the real culprits here are the individual legislators in Connecticut that passed this law in the first place. The Supreme Court simply confirmed that the Connecticut law is constitutional, but without the Connecticut legislators, we wouldn’t have this problem in the first place.
I’ve placed a call to arms on my blog describing my plan to hold these legislators individually accountable. How can we call ourselves patriotic Americans if we fail to end the career of every single Connecticut legislator who supported this law by having them voted out of office? At the very least we can show the children of these legislators, via the ensuing publicity, that they should be ashamed of their parents. While our troops are overseas fighting for freedom, these legislators sit in their air conditioned offices passing laws that take those freedoms away! They should be held accountable, and they should be banned from public office via a civically-minded electorate.
The first step is finding the names of the legislators who supported this law (especially the prominent ones, but also the not so prominent ones), and I’m hoping our good friends from Connecticut will be able to do this (seeing as this happened in their own backyard).
While providing the fifth vote to uphold the Kelo takings, Justice Kennedy stated that a court confronted with a “plausible accusation of impermissible favoritism to private parties should treat the objection as a serious one” after which he recounted the careful process followed by the Kelo trial court. Could this impact the Mulberry Street takings in Newark where it is alleged that, after voting against it, governing body members received received substantial, political contributions allegedly from the developer, and then changed their vote? Is this sufficient to overturn the taking or to permit objectors to have discovery before approving the taking? Can a public body negotiate privately with a particular, favored developer, denying others an opportunity to present alternative development plans? If the public entity alligns itself with a particular private party to benefit from the taking, the Justice suggests there should be a finding as to whether the taking was primarily for the benefit of a particular, private party. To be considered is whether the public entitiy “reviewed a variety of development plans and chose a private developer from a group of applicants rather than picking out a particular transferee beforehand. . . “