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Jacob Sullum reports on an Ohio developer whose cozy relationship with a city council has turned a pleasant suburb into a "deteriorating" potential slum.
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|1.18.06 @ 11:05AM|#
I drove over there to look at the area that is going to be Rookwood Exchange. All but three houses have been torn down.
|1.18.06 @ 11:06AM|#
They will lose. Sorry, but they will.
|1.18.06 @ 11:47AM|#
Two comments from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/18/realestate/18domain.html?pagewanted=1
Ultimately, only two buildings remained, but their owners kept raising the price, Mr. Durst said.
Eventually, the state told Mr. Durst that if he found an anchor tenant the buildings could be condemned even though the site was not in a blighted neighborhood. That threat alone was enough to break the impasse. "Once we had that ability, we were able to quickly come to a resolution on the two properties and meet Bank of America's schedule," Mr. Durst said.
And the article concludes...
Economic development officials, who contend that property-rights groups have exaggerated the threat from eminent domain, said they welcomed the study. "The public is understandably upset because they've not been told the whole story," said Mr. Shirey of the California Redevelopment Association.
So here's the beauty of eminent domain. First, use threats to get your way if the market doesn't let you, and second, the public doesn't know the "whole story" and therefore, like little children, are amusing in their ignorance. Yet, people defend this stuff. Amazing.
|1.18.06 @ 12:02PM|#
I was at the oral arguments before the Ohio Supreme Court last week. The attorney for Norwood actually suggested that "too many dead-end streets" posed a serious threat to "public safety," and the spokesperson for the development, Rookwood, went one step further to assert that the dead end streets, etc., actually posed a threat to "pulic safety" AND "public morals"
|1.18.06 @ 12:26PM|#
Here's another priceless quote from the Times article:
Kathryn S. Wylde, the president and chief executive of the [Partnership for New York City, whose members include most of the city's top developers], said her members opposed any efforts to alter condemnation procedures through federal or state legislation. "When you add restrictions on development, you are never quite sure what the results are going to be," she said.
"Restrictions on development"?! As if it's some pesky government regulation that's preventing the development.
|1.18.06 @ 12:34PM|#
the spokesperson for the development, Rookwood, went one step further to assert that the dead end streets, etc., actually posed a threat to "pulic safety" AND "public morals"
I guess that's why we don't see any new housing developments with cul-de-sacs...?
So I'm looking at a map of the targeted area--from what I can see it contains exactly 2 dead-ends, which were clearly created by ramming I-71 through the neighborhood (the dead-end streets continue on the other side of the expressway for less than one block). Hasn't this neighborhood suffered enough??
|1.18.06 @ 12:45PM|#
a threat to public safety AND public morals
It's amazing how shameless these people when trying to justify this kind of shit.
Nice Sherlock Holmes reference ...
|1.18.06 @ 12:46PM|#
... these people are when trying ...
|1.18.06 @ 1:04PM|#
Reason assured us that the New London project was also an attempt by developers to get their buddies on the City Council to do them a favor, and let them build a highly-profitable project.
Then the developers decided the project wasn't going to be so profitable and walked away. And yet, the city still intends to go forward with the project, and is looking for another developer!
And here we go again, the City Council in Lakewook is trying to do a favor for its buddy, because of their "cozy relationship." Your criticisms of these projects would be a lot stronger if you demonstrated a degree of understanding of what's behind them.
But hey, where's the fun in that? That guy hates poor people and wants to eat babies!
|1.18.06 @ 1:17PM|#
Joe,
I expect better from you.
|1.18.06 @ 1:26PM|#
Your criticisms of these projects would be a lot stronger if you demonstrated a degree of understanding of what's behind them.
Norwood politicians want more tax revenue than they can get from people who have lived in the same house for many years. They want to clear out the nice houses so they can tax a new shopping center. Am I getting close?
|1.18.06 @ 1:37PM|#
Pretty much, Twba. Which is a fine area for criticism in its own right.
|1.18.06 @ 2:02PM|#
The more homeowners we evict from a city for increased tax revenues, the more pleasant a place it will be for homeowners to live!
We had to destroy the village in order to save it.
|1.18.06 @ 2:59PM|#
"it contains exactly 2 dead-ends, which were clearly created by ramming I-71 through the neighborhood."
Yes, one of the Ohio Supreme Court justices stopped and asked the city's attorney at one point if, basically, everything the city was now finding wrong with the neighborhood wasn't, in fact, caused by city and state action in the first place (i.e., 71 through the middle of it, isolating it and causing dead-ends; the streets being to wide, b/c the city widened them, etc.). The city's attorney basically replied, um, yeah, who cares? that's completely irrelevant.
|1.18.06 @ 3:00PM|#
joe,
A question for you regarding intentional blight. I understand that you believe blight is a good reason to use eminent domain and that there are objective standards for classifying it.
What about cases not too dissimilar to this where a developer buys a good portion of a neighborhood, say more than the percentage that would constitute blight. Then they intentionally lets the properties decay, perhaps helping a little by breaking out windows, etc.. They have just blighted the neighborhood, probably lowering property values and opening up the rest to government sanctioned seizure at lower prices.
Do you have a problem with this scenario, why or why not?
|1.18.06 @ 3:48PM|#
The city's attorney basically replied, um, yeah, who cares? that's completely irrelevant.
How much does that genius charge per hour?
|1.18.06 @ 3:58PM|#
Quite simply, no family should ever risk losing its home because a government wants to help a private developer. -U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
|1.19.06 @ 12:26PM|#
Here is an idea. Why not demolish all the federal buildings starting with the Capitol. Think how much tax revenue would be saved if these areas were nice green fields of grass. Think of the blight that could be stopped from being enacted into laws. After all we have a proven track record of government making things worse with everything they touch. They financed a large majority of the areas that are now considered slums to begin with. Had we not had them doing that there would be no slums there today.
As far as deteriorating goes everything and everyone is deteriorating more and more each second of the day. The newest house just finished and ready for move in this week will have one weeks worth of deterioration accumulated by next week and so on and on and on. The land developers body is also deteriorating as well and in the future will surely be broken down and of no use to society, perhaps we should do all of us a favor and put him out of his misery now. After all its gonna happen eventually right. No time like the present to make those changes needed to prevent that from ever happening to begin with. Sure he may think his body is in just fine shape but to the more experienced eye he is definetly on the way down not up. So lets just cut the crap pay him what the rest of his deteriorating life would be worth (according to governement accounts) and get on with whacking the basturd.
Perhaps some displaced slum owners may take comfort in going to the non-slum hoods. I would assume this is where the city council lives and the land developers live. And ohh say torch their homes. I imagine they could find something about each home not to their liking and worthy of a good bon fire, for the best interests of the public of course. After all they were sitting there just deteriorating away.
This of course assumes you could get past the gates to these hoods in the first place. But hey you could always start with ramming the gate since it really is an eye sore to the rest of us anyway.