Eminent Domain—

After Court Ruling, It’s Cities Vs Homeowners

By Matt Apuzzo

Associated Press

NEW LONDON — When a divided US Supreme Court broadened the government’s right to seize private property last week, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor painted a grim portrait of what was to come.

She said wealthy investors and city leaders had been given the power to run people from their homes to make way for new development. The line between public and private property has been blurred, O’Connor said in her dissent, and no home is safe.

Governments have traditionally used their eminent domain authority to build roads, reservoirs, and other public projects. But the power has gradually expanded, allowing cities to eliminate blight. On June 23, the high court ruled that New London could raze a neighborhood to build a privately owned hotel and office space that officials say could add millions of dollars to the tax base.

While municipal leaders say the future O’Connor describes is unrealistic, those who have fought eminent domain say it’s already here.

“Now that they’ve got carte blanche to do whatever they want, they will,” said Dick Saha, 75, who in May won a six-year fight to keep Coatesville, Penn., from seizing his farm.

“We have four horses. My two daughters have some land we gave them and the grandkids come down and ride the horses. We raise hay and alfalfa,” Saha said. “They decided they needed our property for a golf course.”

Municipal and development officials say they are being unfairly cast as greedy land grabbers. Taking property isn’t pleasant, they say, but sometimes it is the only way to spur development in densely populated cities struggling to pay the bills.

“The only way we can stay alive is to grow and revitalize,” said Richard Monteilh, city administrator in Newark, N.J., where he said officials search every year for ways to cover their growing expenses. “The only place to put it is on the same people you put it to last year. Growth is one way to offset that cost.”

In his majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens said local leaders — not federal judges — know best whether a development plan will benefit the community. But O’Connor warned that the decision made it easier for the rich to seize property from the poor.

That’s what George Mytrowitz believes he’s facing in Newark, where officials want to build 2,000 condominium units and retail space on top of 14 acres downtown. City officials say the Mulberry Street area is blighted and should be demolished.

“The developers said, ‘We want it. Let’s blight it and we’ll figure out what to do with it after,’” said Mytrowitz, whose family’s auto shop has been in Newark since 1913.

After the Municipal Council voted against the plan in 2003, developers donated thousands of dollars to city campaigns, according to New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission records. When the council voted again eight months later, the decision was reversed.

Had the Supreme Court sided with the homeowners in the New London case, Newark officials said the Mulberry Street project could have been killed.

“Maybe progress would happen over 20 or 30 years, but we have to survive from one budget to the next,” Monteilh said.

New London officials made the same argument. Mayor Jane Glover said the tiny coastal city of just six square miles had its “back against the water” and could not redevelop without taking land.

Though the seven families who resisted the effort asked to be incorporated in the development, city officials said the old homes would not fit in their plans.

Archie Brooks, a city councilor in Des Moines, Iowa, sympathizes. His city is trying to build a high-tech office park, but auto salvage shops stand in the way. Some are haggling over money, he said, but some want to stay.

“If I went and asked you to relocate your company to Des Moines, spend a few million dollars, do you want to be next to a junkyard?” Brooks said.

Baltimore used eminent domain to build its Inner Harbor. New York used it to revitalize Times Square. Both cities filed briefs with the Supreme Court in the New London case, urging them not to curtail that power.

While property rights groups predicted last week’s decision would encourage more seizures, the International Economic Development Council, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group, said eminent domain remains a risky political move.

“This is a last resort,” said Jeffrey Finkle, the group’s president. “I can’t imagine that this Supreme Court ruling will all of a sudden cause every city council member to risk alienating their constituents by rampantly doing eminent domain.”