$6 Million Marshland

Memo to Maryland's public officials: The next time you're planning to protect some land from developers, you should ask two questions before you buy it:

1. Are we being overcharged?

2. Is there any chance anyone is actually going to develop this land in the first place?

To see what happens when you neglect such queries, read this exposé by the Baltimore Sun's Rona Kobell. (Full disclosure: That's my wife.)

Comments

[jackcjackson]

I am from Ocean City. Developers are lucky they are doing anything these days. Banks are pulling the plug on a lot of projects.

And YES this sounds exactly like something the state of MD would do.

[RexRhino]

Cool... What is there to be that worried about this?

1. The land was undevelopable anyway.

2. The land was purchased, not siezed by eminent domain.

3. The government made the deal sweet for the land owners.

4. The land is actually going for some public use, not to a big corporation.

I know, it isn't perfect... it screws Maryland's tax payers of a lot of money. But this is a vast improvement over the whole Kelo thing, don't you think?

[Cockaman Causeway]

the property was worth more than $6 million because of its location across Assawoman Bay

DEAL!

[Chad]

I just love the "Hey, we already seized control of this land without paying, so why should we pay for what we have already stolen?" theme that runs throughout this piece.

What a sad state of affairs.

[kevrob]

Md. would have been wiser to have paid the owners for a conservation easement when the restrictions on developing the land first were imposed. That would relieve the state of the costs of administering the place, too. A partial taking can be compensated for with a partial payment, even if it isn't always constitutionally required.

Kevin

[Wally the bird]

All the enviromentalists wackos have to do is find some endangred bug and they can stop anything even a hospital or a important medical research facility

[biologist]

I actually worked for an environmental consulting firm. contrary to Wally's claims, I personally witnessed hospital construction within the primary zone of an active bald eagle nest.

at best, environmental laws and regulations slow construction and/ or make it more expensive. rarely, if ever, is development actually stopped.

[RexRhino]

at best, environmental laws and regulations slow construction and/ or make it more expensive. rarely, if ever, is development actually stopped.

Of course they don't stop development. It just means that people have to be more vigilant about killing and removing evidence of the endangered species that live on their land, before the enviornmentalists find out about them.

[biologist]

RexRhino: I'm well aware of that. I was attempting to refute "Wally the bird"'s claim that:

All the enviromentalists wackos have to do is find some endangred bug and they can stop anything even a hospital or a important medical research facility

Comment by: Wally the bird at October 15, 2006 03:15 PM

which is not the case at all

[Wally the bird]

Oh yeah well they did halt a hospital in SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA over the DELI LEVELES FLOWER LOVING FLY and already one southern calfornia county has to pay 4 million dollars to protect a fly and then there was the cheat in which bioligists were cuaght trying plant the hairs of the CANDIAN LYXN in two differnt places in OREGON and COLORADO then when federal bioligists were filmed killing hatery raised coho and then the incedent when they cut off water to the farmers in the KLAMATH BASIN over a pair of trash fish