Three (3) EWGCOG Newsletter articles, July 1, 2005 Volume 8, Issue 26:

1. Local - Blunt to Form Task Force to Study Eminent Domain Issues
Missouri Governor Matt Blunt has announced his intention to issue an Executive Order creating a special task force to study federal and state eminent domain laws. Blunt’s decision to form the Missouri Task Force on Eminent Domain came four days after the United States Supreme Court ruled against homeowners in Connecticut who sought protection from having their homes taken by a private developer for a commercial project.

"This is a terrible ruling that undermines the balance that ought to exist between private property owners and the needs of the public," Blunt said. "I am charging this commission with conducting a thorough review of federal and state eminent domain laws to protect Missouri home, farm and business owners from falling victim to a government tax grab." After conducting the review of state and federal eminent domain laws, the task force will also be charged with issuing criteria to be applied by state and local governments when the use of eminent domain is being proposed and to make recommendations to the Missouri General Assembly to protect private property owners if it is deemed necessary.

"I believe eminent domain can be an appropriate tool under certain circumstances," Blunt said. "But it should not be used as a means to take property from responsible owners when no clear public interest exists."

The nine-member Missouri Task Force on Eminent Domain will only exist until Dec. 31, 2005 and will be assisted by the state departments of Agriculture and Economic Development. Terry Jarrett, Blunt’s General Counsel, will serve as chairman.

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2. National - The Endless Fights Over Property Rights
When the U. S. Supreme Court agreed recently that cities can condemn land for economic development purposes (Kelo v. City of New London, June 23) , mayors around the country breathed a sigh of relief. But they shouldn’t be too confident of their powers to seize Aunt Ethel’s house and turn it into a shopping center. The war over eminent domain isn’t over; it’s shifting battlegrounds.

First, about the ruling. There was never any debate about governments’ power to take property for public uses like a park or highway, things that are owned by governments and used by the public. The debate was whether a city could seize property and give it to a business to build a new factory or store, something that 4 would enhance the tax base. In one famous case, Detroit condemned blocks of a neighborhood called Poletown so General Motors could build an auto assembly plant there. Not pleasant, but is it unconstitutional? As the New York Times noted, it was “a question that had surprisingly gone unanswered.”

The question: What is “public use?” Is economic development (and the subsequent deepening of a city’s tax base) a public use for which condemnation is a proper tool? A bare majority of the court decided it was, as other justices vigorously dissented. (”The specter of condemnation hangs over all property,” one justice warned feverishly. “Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall or any farm with a factory.”) But before a mayor starts fantasizing about Ritz-Carltons, she should realize there are ways that propertyrights groups can — and will — try to stop governments from using eminent domain for economic development projects. First, they’ll try to get state courts to declare it illegal under state constitutions. (Michigan’s supreme court did just that recently, reversing its Poletown decision of 1981.) Where that doesn’t work, they’ll try to get state legislatures to outlaw it. Finally, they’ll protest, and this may be the surest way of restraining governments. After all, there’s nothing as uncomfortable for politicians as explaining why they’re kicking Aunt Ethel out of home to make way for another Wal-Mart.

Excerpted from: Governing.com, Otis White’s Urban Notebook, posted June 27, 2005

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3. Lassoing Sprawl

If there’s a city where sprawl isn’t just tolerated but celebrated, it’s Houston. After all, this is a place where people love their property rights so much, they don’t allow zoning. But even in Houston, residents are having second thoughts about plunking houses and strip shopping centers ever farther out on the prairie. Still, leaders are careful how they criticize these developments. “I don’t want, nor do most people in this community want, to tell people where they can and can’t live or how long their commute should or shouldn’t be,” Mayor Bill White told the Houston Chronicle recently. “One person’s sprawl is another person’s dream house. On the other hand, as a fiscal conservative, I’ll tell you it is much more expensive for us to provide transportation services, water and sewer services and everything else if somebody lives twice as far away.”

That seems to be the Texas approach to dealing with sprawl: Label it a bad investment. Also, point to the obvious: that building new highways only invites more distant development. One anti-sprawl group looked over the new regional transportation plan and was appalled by what it found: plans for building 12,900 milesof new roads over the next 20 years. “That was not a plan, it was a continuation of what we’ve always done,” the group’s president told the Chronicle. “A 75 percent increase in vehicle-miles traveled is assumed. Sprawl is written into it — it’s guaranteed, when we should be trying to rein it in.”

Mayor White agrees that transportation shapes the nature and location of growth, but he’s unwilling to say no to more roads. His approach: Improve neighborhoods, be quick to turn property seized for tax delinquencies into affordable housing and work with the school district on improving the schools. Do these things, he said, and the city’s charms will bring the people back.

Excerpted from: Governing.com, Otis White’s Urban Notebook, posted June 24, 2005