'Eminent Domain Saved My Business'
A St. Paul small business owner credits the local development tool with revitalizing his neighborhood, and pleads to others to resist anti-eminent domain campaigns.
"An advocacy group based outside of Minnesota is fueling this so-called 'battle' over property rights. That's an important distinction because none of them stood by me when my customers started falling away to avoid a nearby dumpsite that was heavily polluted. None of them put any money into the neighborhoods that surrounded this dump, so the houses and businesses like mine started to deteriorate. None of them worked to employ my out-of-work neighbors."
"If the St. Paul Port Authority had not been able to use eminent domain on one of six parcels that would ultimately comprise the Great Northern Business Center, we would probably not be in business today.
Cities and redevelopment agencies like the Port Authority need at least to have the ability to use eminent domain to clean up heavily polluted sites like the one two blocks from my store and to assemble tracts of polluted and dilapidated property for redevelopment. Why? Because no one else will do it."
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Yaaaaawn..
Yet another "Save Eminent Domain" story that manages to flail away at a strawman. None of the legislation being considered in any state due to Kelo backlash has anyhting to do with this situation or situations like it.
If an area is blighted (such as having a "heavily polluted trash transfer station"), eminent domain can and will still be used and no municipality is saying that it can't. Purely economic development based eminent domain is what this debate (and Kelo) is about. Thats the kind of ED that takes that local business owner's land that his store sits on in order to give it to Lowe's... so that Lowe's can make more money and pay more in taxes than he did.
Unfortunately, some bills
Unfortunately, some bills that have been introduced around the country clearly prohibit the use of eminent domain when property is transferred to another private entity afterwards, even it that property is blighted, polluted, etc.
The use of ED as an economic development tool can and should be clarified, yes. Unfortunately, in many cases, it is being outright prohibited, due to an exaggerated emotional response from a few.
Well.. in this case.
The Kelo decision clearly steered any potential legislative action to economic development related ED. It did not provide any guidance whatsoever for eliminating eminent domain for "public" or blight purposes.
While I haven't tracked all of the state bills, In the case of Minnesota, the proposed bill itself provides for eminent domain when an area is conaminated environmentally and then SPECIFICALLY says that such remediations are considered actions in the public interest.
So again, cases such as what is referenced in this article grasp at strawmen to condemn any restrictions placed on eminent domain - when in fact most if not all state level legislation only deals with removing transfers that clearly only benefit private interests (and state coffers)
http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H2846.0.html&ses...
117.025 Sub 8
Subd. 8. Environmentally contaminated area. "Environmentally contaminated
2.28 area" means an area:
2.29 (1) that contains, on or below more than 50 percent of its surface area, any substance
2.30 or substances defined, regulated, or listed as a hazardous substance, hazardous material,
2.31 hazardous waste, toxic waste, pollutant, contaminant, or toxic substance, or identified as
2.32 hazardous to human health or the environment under state or federal law or regulation; and
2.33 (2) for which the costs of investigation, monitoring and testing, and remedial action
2.34 or removal, as defined in section 115B.02, subdivisions 16 and 17, respectively, including
2.35 any state costs of remedial actions, exceed 100 percent of the assessor's estimated market
3.1 value for the contaminated area, as determined under section 273.11, for property taxes
3.2 payable in the year in which the condemnation commenced.
117.025 Sub 11
Public use; public purpose. (a) "Public use" or "public purpose" means,
3.12 exclusively:
"(3) mitigation of a blighted area, remediation of an environmentally contaminated
3.17 area, reduction of abandoned property, or removal of a public nuisance."