Supreme Court Ruling: Does This Bother You?

[pineda]

RULING FAVORS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OVER PROPERTY RIGHTS

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP, NYTimes.com) The U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday that local governments can seize private property for economic development if the development is for the public good.

In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled against homeowners in New London, Conn., who were fighting to keep their homes. The city plans to demolish their working-class homes to make room for an office building, a riverfront hotel and other commercial buildings. The residents should receive

[gardenoaksguy]

I personally find this very disturbing. At one point in my career I was a City Planner. I can think of very few projects proposed for communities that are in economic trouble that are economically feasible to begin with...just look at the tax breaks given by the City of Houston and others to the now defunct Albertson's grocery store (now a self storage) over by Timbergrove. It is a slippery slope. I sadly think we are loosing personal and privacy rights faster in this country than we are building CVS's! When are we going to wake up?

[kjb434]

I have no problems with developers. And believe it or not, some developers are against this ruling. Several of our clients were telling us this.

The important thing to remember, is that city or county governments have to approve of the taking of the property. I think as long as the official is threaten to not be re-elected, then he/she may support the property owner.

I really feel for the neighborhoods that don't really have much of a voice. This is so unfair to them now. The left leaning judges who are so protective of citizens just screwed them over. Typically the 5th amendment is used to argue for the rights of criminals. This time it was used to take the right away from the innocent.

[pineda]

kjb says: "I think as long as the official is threaten(ed) to not be re-elected, then he/she may support the property owner."

(taken from a recent Houston Chronicle story regarding the Grand Parkway)

Commissioner Jerry Eversole, whose Precinct 4 includes Spring and most of the other areas where the section would be built, said the road is needed to provide solutions to the area's current and future traffic needs.

"It still goes back to I think it's the right thing to do. It has nothing to do with selling homes or building shopping centers," Eversole said. "The solution will be to build the road, to take the consequences and, if it means my defeat, then it means my defeat."

Freeport story in the Chronicle today

Land can be taken for private use

High court upholds cities' seizures for development

(from the AP story on the landmark Supreme Court ruling):

-snip-

In a scathing dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the decision bowed to the rich and powerful at the expense of middle-class Americans.

-snip-

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, said New London could pursue private development under the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property if the land is for public use, because the project the city has in mind promises to bring in jobs and revenue.

"Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government," Stevens wrote, adding that local officials are better positioned than federal judges to decide what's best for a community.

-snip-

At least eight states - Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, South Carolina and Washington - forbid the use of eminent domain for economic development unless it is to eliminate blight. Other states either expressly allow a taking for private economic purposes or have not spoken clearly on the question.

In dissent, O'Connor criticized the majority for abandoning the principle of individual property rights and handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled.

"The specter of condemnation hangs over all property," O'Connor wrote. "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."

"It's a little shocking to believe you can lose your home in this country," said resident Bill Von Winkle, who said he would keep fighting the bulldozers in his working-class neighborhood. "I won't be going anywhere. Not my house. This is definitely not the last word."

But Connecticut state Rep. Ernest Hewett, who as a city council member voted to approve the development, said, "I am charged with doing what's best for the 26,000 people that live in New London. That to me was enacting the eminent domain process designed to revitalize a city ... with nowhere to go."

New London once was a center for whaling and later became a manufacturing hub.

More recently the city has suffered the sort of economic woes afflicting urban areas around the country, with losses of residents and jobs.

City officials envision a commercial development including a riverfront hotel, health club and offices that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.

salary.com recently ranked this city "with nowhere to go" as the best priced city to live in?

[N Judah]

Nah, the government has been trampling the rights of poor people for years. People are only noticing now that they're threatened too.

On the plus side, maybe now conservatives will begin to realize just how connected governments and corporations really are. There's such a thin line between pointless freeways that subsidize rural landowners and governments acting on behalf of corporations to alter neighborhoods.

[pineda]

There's such a thin line between pointless freeways that subsidize rural landowners and governments acting on behalf of corporations to alter neighborhoods.

Is there even a line?

Case in point, David Gornet, spokesmodel for the Grand Parkway (the last private transportation corporation in the state, according to him) speaks out of both sides of his mouth when he tries to sell the Grand Parkway idea to public officials in segmented areas by telling them that it will encourage economic growth and commercial and residential development at an unprecedented, never before seen rate.

At the same time, he shows up at civic club meetings telling homeowners that it will not encourage sprawl and that it is not an "induced growth" project, as in "build it, and they will come". He likes to tell homeowners that "it won't be like another F.M. 1960", and yet is having business leaders salivating at the prospect that that is exactly what will become for their community.

David Gornet likes to talk about "low impact on the environment" with the Grand Parkway, but has shied away from discussing the "park-like" atmosphere once touted by him as part and parcel of the Grand Parkway project. He had people once believing that the Grand Parkway would be highly landscaped with little pocket parks for children to play in scattered along the route. Never mind how ludicrous that sounds, children put in harm's way, smelling all the carcinogenic toxins spewing from 18-wheelers. Somehow, along the way, that part of plan disappeared, and now, so has Robin Sterry, who was in charge of the environmental impact study. Maybe she had enough of all the lies and left.

When the first section was built, it went through largely rural and unoccupied land and gave the rural landowners access that they otherwise wouldn't have had. It also all happened before the time that computers were in every household, giving everyone access to public meetings notices and records they otherwise wouldn't have known about. Things went smoothly under the radar for the Grand Parkway.

Now, when they came out to the Spring area, it all fell apart. No one donated land for the project, and in the beginning, when the Grand Parkway idea was resurrected after being shut down for so many years, they had promised only to build the road with donated land. That didn't work out here. The Grand Parkway group tried to sell the road as "a congestion reliever for the Spring area". Wrong again, we didn't need it. Even in their own DEIS, it was shown that the level of congestion relief provided to the Spring area by the Grand Parkway was negligible at best.

The Grand Parkway Association had already given up on the idea of selling the road as a "possible hurricane evacuation route", because the one section already built, Segment D, FLOODS when it rains!

Things weren't looking for the Grand Parkway Association; nobody wanted to donate land, people were finding out about the project from the Internet and from small grass-roots efforts springing up, nobody bought into the "congestion-relief" crap except the Woodlands, who jumped on the Grand Parkway bandwagon with the belief that the Grand Parkway is a great idea, AS LONG AS IT'S BUILT IN SPRING, NOT THE WOODLANDS.

Then Senator Jon Lindsay, who's apparently still trying to sell his services as a consultant to anyone who will pay for them, got HCTRA involved, because as he told State Rep. Debbie Riddle, "those people in Spring are causing too many problems and I want the road built NOW."

Anyway, the fight goes on...

Is there a line? I think that got blurred a long time ago.

[Casual Observer]

Pineda - I admire your passion for the Grand Parkway Project, but I have to ask: Is anything you and your group doing making a difference in the placement & building of the GPP?

I don't mean to come off as negative, but I'm truely curious if you've had any success fighting the government on this issue?

[pineda]

Actually, when we first heard about the project at a public meeting sponsored by the Spring Tabernacle church, and moderated by David Eastwood, the project was to have started immediately. But, I don't think that the Grand Parkway Association took into consideration two big things:

1. the power of the internet to help inform the community

2. the power of the Spring community to pull together neighborhoods into a cohesive unit to fight against the Grand Parkway

We have been able to push back the timetable considerably, almost five years now, and will continue to try to push it back even more. We have been able to have massive turn-outs for the public hearings. We have been able to force the Grand Parkway Association to come out with not only one Supplemental EIS, but now another one is on the way also. They had hoped to just bluff their way through with the first DEIS, but thanks to Jim Blackburn and State Rep. Debbie Riddle, we were able to dissect those documents and expose the facts hiding beneath all the fluff. The DEIS documents were flawed, the maps were outdated, their excuses for not having all their ducks in a row, didn't fly. We have been able to keep this issue before the public in the media and have been able to meet with state and local officials and speak intelligently on the issue and not just passionately and have our concerns heard. Although Senator Jon Lindsay and County Commissioner Jerry Eversole have long since forgotten "whose water they're supposed to be carrying", we have been able to fight this project, shrouded in secrecy and lies from day one. Point, when the Harris County Commissioners Court voted to give money to a subcontractor of HCTRA to study schematics for an alignment, our group was the one to inform the Grand Parkway Association, who were not even told of the meeting or the vote. Soon afterwards, the leader of the environmental studies for the Grand Parkway quit. Coincidence? We may just be a mosquito buzzing in the ear of the officials charged with this project, but we will continue to maintain a presence and fight against this behemoth project with our very limited resources. I know that's not welcome news for Art Storey, but that's just too damn bad. I'm tired of hearing how more wonderful my life in Spring would be with the Grand Parkway put into place by people who don't even live here and couldn't even find it on a map.

[marmer]

This Freeport deal is a mess. I grew up in Lake Jackson and my family had a boat when I was a kid. The seafood plants have been there forever; my sister-in-law knows the Gore family. I remember at least three marinas failing in the nearby area; the one "upscale" one, Bridge Harbor Marina, is still around. It's hard for me to believe that a marina would lead to the kind of development they are envisioning or even do well that close to the commercial shrimp fleet.

Marty

[kjb434]

Marinas like this have been built in Louisisana in the area around Grand Ilse (really small version of Galveston, really small). The marina spured around 100 new vacation/retirement homes. These homes aren't on the beach. The are on the back bayous and are often advertised to people who love to fish. Also, many large shimp boats pass by this area too.

I don't aggrees with the city being involved and taking some people land, but the development has potential if done right. 'To me, it's hard to believe that no other land could be used down there. Is it like the only prime location?