Landowner rights may be cut

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Arizona Daily Star

9/29/04

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide when local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will to make way for projects like shopping malls and hotel complexes that produce more tax revenue.

The court already has given governments broad power to take private property through eminent domain, provided the owner is given "just compensation." This often involves blighted neighborhoods residents are eager to leave.

But in recent years more cities and towns have been accused of abusing their authority, razing nice homes to make way for parking lots for casinos and other tax-producing businesses.

In agreeing to hear a Connecticut case early next year, justices will revisit an issue they last dealt with 20 years ago. The court unanimously ruled then that Hawaii could take land from large property owners and resell it to others, and determined that decisions about takings were best left to elected leaders.

In the latest case, Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed a lawsuit after city officials announced plans to bulldoze their homes to clear the way for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.

The neighborhood included Victorian-era houses that had been owned by several generations of families.

The Fifth Amendment allows governments to take private property for "public use."

The appeal turns on whether "public use" involves seizures not to revitalize slums or build new roads or schools, but to raze unblighted homes and businesses to bring in more money for a town.

"I'm not willing to give up what I have just because someone else can generate more taxes here," said Matthew Dery, whose family has lived in a New London neighborhood for more than 100 years.

New London contends development plans serving a public purpose are valid "public use" projects that outweigh homeowners' property rights.