Eminent Domain: Too Big a Temptation for Governmental Agencies to Resist Abusing

Please read the following article on this important subject for background on the reason I wrote this blog and what information I was using.

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/06/03/last-stand-battle-against-eminent-domain/?test=latestnews

Eminent domain has to be one of the most abused powers in existence right now in the United States. On the surface, it seems logical: stop one (or a few) land-owner/property owner from stopping a freeway from built that needs to be built for everyone else. The problem of course is that it seems to be the nature of governmental agencies and some greedy developers to use this power to further their own interests. There are so many examples of abuses that I could not possibly list them all without spending years to research and compile the information. Because of this, I want to focus on the people fighting to keep the property that their family has owned for a very long time in this blog.
Jake Bono is the current owner of Bono Sawdust Supply, a company that has existed since its founding in 1933 by his family. His land and building is located in the Willits point industrial area of Queens, New York. He, along with a group of property owners in the area are banding together to stop their lands from being redeveloped in favor of a new mixed-use development. Apparently the area is run-down and that made the city want to tear everything down and start over (likely to improve its image). I have a huge issue with this because the city has no business telling one developer that he or she can take the land of another person for the overall public good. I realize that there has to be some control in an urban setting of zoning, but this should be left to the way it is now. What I mean by this assertion is that a city can rezone land at any time anyway, but that new zoning can only affect the tenants if they decide to sell their land or business to another party. This makes it so that as long as the current owner owns the land or building, he or she can still keep the type of business, home or building they currently own or occupy despite the zoning change. This makes much more sense than either uncontrolled hodge-podge development or full governmental control of all property rights and is a good balance in my opinion. This arrangement allows the market to decide what will be built and allows for zoning variances when requested by land-owners or developers while maintaining the right of the current owner to proceed as normal in their business or lives. This system works well despite the fact that the process takes more time than it should.
In the case of the Bono’s and the other businesses fighting to remain in their rightful locations, the city has greatly overstepped its bounds. The land that the other tenants and owners around them has been sold (which is the right of the parties involved to do) which should allow for the new development to take place as planned – just with a different design. If it happens that the development has to be changed, so be it. It may well be true that the businesses who decide to stay will eventually have to move due to the new development’s demographic and economic impact on the area, but if that happens, then the land can by bought at that time and the new development expanded. The market will then decide what form the development takes – which is as it should be. I realize that the owners who choose to stay and fight might make the development economically impossible, but the potential developer of the new mixed use project should do their homework and make a design that works around those who choose to stay or scrap it all together – that is free-market economics; deal with it.
"Willets Point needs to be cleaned up," says the Queens Borough President Helen Marshall. "It's not a place where anybody should be working." The blatant arrogance of this city official is staggering to me. Who says that no one should be working there? Apparently many people do or else there would have been empty, vacant lots and no issue with eminent domain would have existed. The land would have just been bought fairly and developed as is now planned with no issue at all. The fact is that the city of Queens wants to improve its image and will apparently try and use underhanded (illegal in my opinion) means to do so. Eminent domain was never intended to be used in this type of manner. Basically what will happen if the 44 percent of land-owners fighting this move lose, then the city has basically transferred land from one person to another because it “didn’t fit” some bureaucratic entity’s vision of what should be built there. I hope you agree that this is a very dangerous power-play by a governmental agency that should be stopped immediately. I would expect this from the Chinese government, but not any U.S. governmental agency.
Property rights have been chipped away at for a very long time now in this country. Property rights are one of the cornerstones of our nation’s constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms that must be protected by all legal means. I assert that the power of eminent domain be stripped from the books completely and when rare instances of the necessity for doing so arise, they should be dealt with individually and mediated until a decision is reached. This situation is not any public works project that absolutely must be implemented (which is why the law was created) but rather a power-play by the city to strong-arm rightful owners of properties to leave so that they can prop up another group of developers so that "There will be a lot of nice stores, people can shop. "Queens should not be the dumping ground for the world.” (Queens Borough President Helen Marshall.) I think that most people would agree that the area may not be the most attractive place in the world, but it is not the place of the city to decide its future in this manner. Rezoning is the borough’s right to do, but until the businesses who choose to stay move, they have no right to try and force them to leave.
In fairness, the land-owners have been offered money for their land (for sake of argument I will assume that the amounts offered are fair) but what I discussed earlier with regard to the remaining businesses having the possibility of failing because they stayed applies. If they fail, they knowingly took the chance to stay and face the possibility of failure due to the new development that will be built. I am sure that those business owners would be upset, but know they made the choice and move on with life.
As you can see, I am very leery of property rights being eroded away for any reason, but especially being blatantly trampled as in this case. Many who own any land realize that they have very few rights as it is due to property taxes (which I believe to be illegal) and governmental interference. I had a friend of mine say that no one actually owns land because if they don’t pay their property taxes, the government seizes the land. He is absolutely correct! Basically, by allowing land to be taxed, we gave up our rights to it completely! I don’t care that the property taxes are used to fund education, it is not right to give the government complete control of our most basic, constitutionally guaranteed possessions and it must be taken back by making property taxes illegal. Schools can be funded by lowering taxes and cutting unnecessary regulation on industry and commerce, thus increasing governmental revenues. This, in combination with trimming down the size of the federal government will allow the necessary funds to exist and property taxes will become unnecessary.
All of us as citizens of the United States of America have a solemn duty to maintain the freedoms that so many have sacrificed all to maintain or even bring about to begin with. The best way we can do so is to stay abreast of the state of laws and regulations and then vote for or against laws based on our consciences. I, for one, believe that property rights are one area that must be dealt with immediately or else many other freedoms will be taken from us.