Government seizure of private property

Natorgator · Post by **Natorgator** » 2003-08-21 11:48am

Although I'm not nearly as conservative as I used to be, I read the Neal Boortz website from time to time. Today I read a chilling tale of how a city government is seizing property from private landowners in order to build a shopping center:

Neal Boortz wrote:Alabaster is a community of about 24,000 people. Interstate 65 runs through Alabaster. A private developer named Colonial Properties Trust wants to build a shopping center anchored by a Wall-Mart on one of the corners of the I-65 intersection. The trouble is that Colonial doesn’t own all of the land they need. A few private land owners have refused to sell their property to Colonial. That, my friends, should be the end of the story. If one private individual wants to own a certain piece of property, but the legal owner of that piece of property doesn’t want to sell it, the private property rights of the owner of the real estate should be recognized, and the person trying to buy the property should back off.

Well, that’s not the way it’s working in Alabaster. Colonial, you see, has some friends in powerful places … politicians on the Alabaster city council. Colonial has decided to use that one unique government asset, the right to use force, to accomplish something that it cannot accomplish on its own. Colonial is asking the City of Alabaster to use force to seize the property under eminent domain and then sell that property to them, to Colonial, so that plans for the shopping center can proceed.

The politicians of Alabaster, Alabama are only too eager to cooperate.

Next week the City of Alabaster will file the condemnation proceedings in the Shelby County, Alabama courts. The City of Alabaster will try to seize the land under the principle of eminent domain. But wait! Aren’t governments supposed to use eminent domain to seize private property only when that property is needed for a public use? How can these politicians take that property away from its owners and then sell it to a private company to build a privately owned shopping center?

Here’s what the Alabaster politicians are saying. They claim that they simply cannot collect enough property taxes in their town of 24,000 to pay for all of the government they believe the citizens of Alabaster need. They need some sales taxes. Trouble is, there aren’t enough businesses around town to generate the amount of sales taxes these politicians want. The answer? Hey! Let’s get a shopping center in town. A shopping center will generate thousands of dollars in sales taxes, and we’ll have all that money to spend! What a concept!

So, Alabaster’s “public use” excuse is that the current owners of the land simply don’t pay enough taxes. The land needs to be seized and turned over to someone who will generate some more tax payments. Those additional taxes can then be spent on the public. There’s your “public use.”

You do realize, don’t you, that this very same excuse can be used by any government entity anywhere in the United States that wants to increase its tax revenues? Let’s say that you’re sitting fat and happy in a home that has been in your family for generations. You’re sitting on about five acres in a prime location near a major city. A local developer wants your property to build a subdivision of cluster-mansions. You don’t want to sell. The developer goes to the county commission and tells them that if he had that property he could build at least 15 homes there worth about $600,000 each. The developer correctly points out to the politician that the county could collect thousands of dollars in additional property taxes if he could just get his hands on that land and build those homes. A few weeks passes and one day you get a letter from the county attorney telling you that your property is going to be seized by the county. Their only excuse is that they can get more tax dollars if your five acres had 15 homes than they can with your 60 year-old farmhouse. The “public use?” More tax revenues.

If governments can abuse the concept of eminent domain in this manner then your private property rights are virtually non-existent. You own your home only so long as the local politicians tolerate that ownership. Let some developer come along with a better idea, and you can kiss your dirt goodbye.

What are the citizens of Alabaster saying about the rights of the property owners? Let’s check in with Councilman Tommy Ryals. Ryals, who works in the environmental compliance department of Alabama Power, thinks that these property owners are just being greedy. He says “Sometimes the good fo the many has to outweigh the greed of the few.” Sound familiar? Wasn’t it Hillary Clinton who said “We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.” Private property rights? The rights of the individual? Hey, these are all to be set aside for the good of the collective. I wonder if Tommy Ryals and Hillary Clinton have ever met. I wonder if Mr. Ryals would tell us that the individual has the obligation to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow man. If so, he wouldn’t be the first person to express that belief. Adolf Hitler said the same thing back in 1933.

Yes, I’m invoking some pretty ugly names here in the defense of the property rights of these Alabaster landowners. That’s because I’m passionate about the right to property and to the idea that one of the prime directives to government is to protect those property rights, not to destroy them for the economic gain of another. Property rights are the absolute foundation of economic liberty, and property rights are under assault by Colonial and the politicians of Alabaster, Alabama.

All ultra-conservative comments aside, what does everyone think of this? I'm wondering if there's two sides to the story but I haven't seen or heard anything about this in the news outlets. To me, this seems VERY unfair and it's downright disgusting.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-08-21 12:09pm

I find the use of emminent domain to create shopping centers to be a sick misjustice. If WallMart cant afford to buy land build a store then they cant afford it. What could be more capitalistic than that?

This is a common problem all across the USA. I think its more of a problem on the East Coast. Its such bullshit. As for deciding they need more taxes, that would be interesting court fight here in California. We have this thing called Prop 13 which freezes your taxes at a certain rate a year. (property taxes that is. )

So if I bought my house last year , which I did, I pay 2600 a year in taxes. But the people next door who bought 4 years before me pay half, cause the paid half price for their condo. Same condos, same worth on the market.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-08-21 12:12pm

The government is here to serve the best interests of the people. Defense of private ownership and liberty is top among those interests. Removing people from their homes to build shopping malls is a violation of the intent behind the constitution. It gets worse when companies start telling people "Sell to us or we will make the government remove you". Its nothing but big business interests, not public interest.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-08-21 12:22pm

The guy just had to throw in a jab at Hillary Clinton, as if it's her fault. Why didn't he just implicitly blame John F. Kennedy for this ordeal because he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country"?

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2003-08-21 12:23pm

TrailerParkJawa wrote:I find the use of emminent domain to create shopping centers to be a sick misjustice. If WallMart cant afford to buy land build a store then they cant afford it. What could be more capitalistic than that?

I agree. It is simply sick the logic they are using to come up with reasons why they can shoe horn a WallMart into an area. If the town is so small that they need WM taxes to bail them out they are going to be so screwed in a few years when WM pulls out after killing all of the other business that used to be in the town. Guess they won't need that much government when that happens.

TrailerParkJawa wrote: So if I bought my house last year , which I did, I pay 2600 a year in taxes. But the people next door who bought 4 years before me pay half, cause the paid half price for their condo. Same condos, same worth on the market.

I didn't realize they froze it so early. I thought property taxes didn't get frozen until you were at or near retirement age.

It sucked that property taxes used to drive away people who'd bought a house in the sticks 30 years ago and now they were in prime real estate.

Does this only work for one home or does it work for additional properties that people own? I would think it would be a bad idea for them to include investment property since it would make it easier for individuals to grab onto and keep more property. Making it harder for new people to buy homes. I suppose it might mean that some rental rates might be reasonable if the owner isn't greedy.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-08-21 12:51pm

Sue them.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-08-21 02:28pm

HemlockGrey wrote:Sue them.

Hey, if the government comes in and claims eminent domain they can't do a damn thing about it.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2003-08-21 04:34pm

Something like this happened in Pittsburgh a few years back. Heinz, one of Pittsburgh's megacompanies, decided it wanted to expand it's facilities. To do this, they wanted to buy one of their neighbors out, and expand there. The neighbor company, which does textiles, since they were doing decently for themselves and the owner cared about the company that he spent a lifetime making. After Heinz got done waving a check at him (the check wasn't worth the cost of company, really), Heinz said "Screw it." and found that it was cheaper to bully the city of Pittsburgh into declaring emminent domain on the textile company than try and buy the textile company the normal way. Huge stink went up over this, because it was obvious what Heinz was doing. As one of Pittsburgh's oldest and most powerful company, Heinz figured it had the city by the balls anyway, since it developed huge revenue for the city (everyone uses Heinz products, after all) and could say "Do this thing for us or you'll be sorry". It became quite the shitstorm, but in the end the textile company ended to making Heinz pay a fairly large chunk of change for their troubles, and it settled.

Also, Mayor Murphy the Smurf, has a history of deciding it would be smurfing to emminent domain small businesses in downtown and then give the land to big department stores in his everlasting quest to get people to shop in downtown rather in the suburbs and ignoring the fact that everyday people don't bother to go into huge department stores downtown, but they do go into small operations and that downtown has steadily been loosing it's department stores because people would rather go to the burbs.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2003-08-21 04:37pm

Durran Korr wrote:Hey, if the government comes in and claims eminent domain they can't do a damn thing about it.

The guy who owned the textile factory in my above post managed to fight eminent domain pretty well, but mostly because there was large public support for his cause and Mayor Murphy loves to flip-flop on things.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-08-21 04:49pm

Eminent domain was introduced specifically the facility the construct of the interstate highway system. Its now heavily abused and should be restricted to matters of urgent national security or probably military defence to be even more restrictive. That was its original point anyway since the highways where considered military assets, thus the one-mile in five must be straight aspect so they cold be used as runways.

Certainly no government less then the federal should be allowed to use it.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-08-21 04:54pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:Eminent domain was introduced specifically the facility the construct of the interstate highway system. Its now heavily abused and should be restricted to matters of urgent national security or probably military defence to be even more restrictive. That was its original point anyway since the highways where considered military assets, thus the one-mile in five must be straight aspect so they cold be used as runways.

Certainly no government less then the federal should be allowed to use it.

Actually, eminent domain dates back to the 17th Century...you are right, though, it first came into common use with the interstate highway system.

Now we just have to wait until the Vogons come along, claim eminent domain, and blow up our planet to build a hyperspace route through our galaxy.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2003-08-21 05:38pm

This eminent domain crap is going to keep happening until it gets to the supreme court.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2003-08-21 06:05pm

This happened in Texas a while back when the Rangers wanted to build a new ballpark. GW Bush threatened to pull out of Texas unless a new ballpark was built, and refused to pay. The government tried to used eminent domain, since it was in the interest of the Sporting Authority (a government group) to keep the Rangers in state. They were sued, and taxpayer money was used to keep a privately-owned baseball team in the state. I believe in the end it was ruled that eminent domain did not apply in that case, though I would have to go look it up.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-08-21 09:14pm

Eminent Domain is the most abused government power ever.

It's nothing new to see it abused for the sake of commercial developers. Unfortunately it's been ruled to be legal. Basically justifying it with tax increases and what not.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2003-08-21 09:21pm

Durandal wrote:The guy just had to throw in a jab at Hillary Clinton, as if it's her fault. Why didn't he just implicitly blame John F. Kennedy for this ordeal because he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country"?

I'm sure their views are popular down there in Alabama.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-08-21 11:39pm

Tsyroc wrote:
I didn't realize they froze it so early. I thought property taxes didn't get frozen until you were at or near retirement age.

It sucked that property taxes used to drive away people who'd bought a house in the sticks 30 years ago and now they were in prime real estate.

Does this only work for one home or does it work for additional properties that people own? I would think it would be a bad idea for them to include investment property since it would make it easier for individuals to grab onto and keep more property. Making it harder for new people to buy homes. I suppose it might mean that some rental rates might be reasonable if the owner isn't greedy.

When you buy property in California your tax rate will bet set to match the sales price. In my case that was $249,950. Depending on your location the taxe rate will vary but usually falls within 1.0 to 1.6%. Once your taxes are set, they can only raise them 2% a year. This prevents people from streching themselves to buy their first home, only to lose it, cause they neighborhood appreciated so much.

Real Estate in the SF BAY Area doubles about every 10 years. During the boom times, it doubled in 4 years. And no, most people's salaries dont compensate.

Prop 13 is essential for retiree's. It also keeps govt spending under control. The whole tax rebellion that prompted Prop 13 in the 70's was because of run away local govts showing zero fiscal responsibility.

It is important to note that prop 13 protects commercial properties, investment properties, etc. This has the effect of allowing business' cause they are "imortal" in a sense to pay way low taxes. Im not sure that is was what orginially intended.

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2003-08-22 04:35pm

Eminent domain is a crock o' the brown and smelly.

When Interstate 64 was being built back in the '70s, the state used eminent domain to clear a section of Charleston that had a large black community, giving the folks that had lived there for generations pennies on the dollar for their property... or nothing at all, just declaring them 'unfit for living'. The black population was forced to move to the worst of neighborhoods, and they're still trying to rebuild.

In 1999, the Charleston city council tried to call eminent domain on the apartment building I was living in at the time, as well as 5 other houses. They wanted the property for a new grocery store because a regional chain wanted a better site than they previously owned in that area. The protest caused second thoughts, and the regional chain *closed* the store in that area anyway... leaving no grocery store whatsoever in the entire East End of Charleston. Now, in 2003, we have a small family-run grocery and several expensive convenience store gas stations, but still no big-name store within 20 blocks.