Supreme Court on property rights.
The US Supreme Court today is hearing oral argument on a case titled Kelo vs. City of New London, in which the city is claiming that they have a right to take Kelo's waterfront home and property (via eminent domain) because the property can be put to a higher and better tax use. The city also gave a private organization all kinds of powers to decide what was the "best use" of the land. You can find out a bit more about it here:
http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2005/02/will_leviathan_.html
Essentially, the issue before the Court is this:
Does the U.S. Constitution allow the government to take property from one private party in order to give it to another private party because the new owner might produce more profit and more taxes for the City from the land?
This is a heavy constitutional issue, because government is not empowered to take land for private benefit; the benefit must be PUBLIC. (And even if public, the homeowners must be compensated for the taking).
I had an earlier post where I noted that if multiple blocks get landmarked, that will necessarily prevent the highest and best use for our property. In the above case, the Connecticut S. Ct. allowed the city to take the property because its value wasn't being maximized. Can you see the long-term thread here? City landmarks property, which itself is a taking of your property rights. Two decades from now, city says land isn't meeting its full potential (duh, 'cause it is landmarked), and can be put to a better use, so seizes it under this principle.
posted by The Grants @ 1:49 PM
1 Comments:
I'm not an attorney, but here's something I picked up about historic preservation legality. The Supreme Court issued what is considered a landmark decision relating to historic preservation about 30 years ago when it ruled in favor of the city of New York and prevented the demolition of Penn Station. Feeling empowered, municipalities have since run amok and have landmarked many structures. It appears to me, however, that this practice of landmarking entire districts for the purpose of usurping zoning law is a new development that was not envisioned or considered by the Supreme Court. When entire districts are landmarked, many structures get included that would not merit landmark status on their own, and the system is clearly being abused. As I said, I'm not an attorney, but I'm wondering if; now that something like 5000 structures in the city of Chicago are landmarked simply because of geographic location and the financial loss to all these property owners is huge; is there grounds and incentive for a class action law suit?
Post a Comment
<< Home