Source: http://volokh.com/category/property-rights/post-kelo-reform/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 09:58:12+00:00

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Quick background: to take property for redevelopment, a local redevelopment agency (typically the City Council) has to declare an area “blighted.” They don’t have to declare each structure to be blighted—they can condemn whole neighborhoods, including perfectly adequate property, if lots down the street or around the corner are “blighted.” And what is the definition of “blight”? The Redevelopment Law contains two lists of factors (“physical” and “economic”), and the officials have to declare that one item from each list is present. That’s all. And the factors are already very vague. My personal favorite is “conditions that prevent or substantially hinder the viable use or capacity of buildings or lots.” What does that mean? It means whatever the government says it means.
That’s the current law. It is already so bad that practically any property in the state can be declared blighted if local officials want to do it. What the new initiative would do is expand these two lists even more.
Next week, on Friday, January 3, between 5 and 6:15 PM, I will be doing a presentation on my next book, tentatively entitled The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain at the Federalist Society’s annual faculty conference. This will be a preview of the book, which will be the first book-length treatment by a legal scholar of Kelo v. City of New London – one of the most controversial decisions in the modern history of the Supreme Court, and the important constitutional property rights issues it raises. The book considers Kelo from the standpoint of both originalist and living constitution theory, and also has the most complete analysis to date of the enormous political reaction that Kelo generated. I have completed a first draft of the book, but will be making revisions over the coming months.
The Federalist Society conference will be held in parallel with the annual AALS conference nearby. I will be presenting as part of a panel focusing on works in progress. If you are coming to the AALS conference and are interested in constitutional theory, property rights issues, or eminent domain, I hope you will consider dropping by. Legal blogosphere mavens may be interested to know that Dan Markel of Prawfsblawg, a leading criminal law scholar, will be presenting a paper as part of the same panel.
James Dupree has been celebrated around the world for his art. But now he is being condemned by the city of Philadelphia—literally.
But the city of Philadelphia has other plans for his property. In November 2012, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA) was authorized to acquire 17 properties to build a supermarket in Mantua. According to the redevelopment plans, the PRA wants to bulldoze Dupree’s studio to make room for the privately-owned grocery store and its parking lot. No tenant has been identified yet, but the supermarket project has received $2.75 million in state subsidies….
Dupree estimates professionally moving his oeuvre would cost at least a quarter of a million dollars. So just relocating his vast collection actually costs more than what he originally paid for the building.
“I invested everything I owned into this property…I was basically broke,” Dupree remarked. The property itself cost a little under $200,000. Installing new electrical and plumbing: $60,000. Fixing the roof was another $68,000. Thousands more were spent on renovations, furnishings and appliances.
This week, New Jersey lawmakers sent legislation to Governor Chris Christie that would reform the state’s eminent domain laws. If Christie signs, New Jersey would become the 45th state to pass reforms since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against homeowners in Kelo v. New London in 2005.
Unfortunately, the legislation provides scant protections for property owners. The companion bills (S-2447 and A-3615) each allow local officials wide latitude to declare property blighted, which authorizes the use of eminent domain for private redevelopment projects….
The bills do provide for “non-condemnation redevelopment areas,” which allow developers to access the subsidies that come with a redevelopment designation—without granting eminent domain….
But, weirdly, the bills allow for turning a non-condemnation area into a condemnation area when a property owner is unwilling to sell to officials’ preferred developer. Sort of negates the whole point.
The legislation purports to codify a 2007 state Supreme Court ruling that made it more difficult to declare property blighted. Paulsboro officials had argued that their belief that a piece of land was not being put to the best and highest use was enough to warrant a blight designation. The judges disagreed.
Last week, the House Judiciary Committee passed the Private Property Rights Protection Act, which would prevent local governments that engage in Kelo-style economic development takings from receiving federal economic development funds. As I explained in a post last year (which explains the bill in more detail), this legislation has been kicking around Congress since 2005. At various times, it has passed the House only to die in the Senate. If it finally passes both houses this time around, it will be a useful, though limited step towards disincentivizing abusive takings that transfer property to powerful private interests, often without actually producing the promised economic benefits for the region.
The Supreme Court of Missouri recently issued Missouri Ex. Rel. Jackson v. Dolan, an important decision interpreting the state’s post-Kelo eminent domain reform law, which bans the use of eminent domain to condemn property for “solely economic development purposes.” As Robert Thomas points out at the Inverse Condemnation Blog, the ruling gives the statute more bite in constraining eminent domain than most experts (myself included) expected it to have.
In the aftermath of the federal Supreme Court’s unpopular decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which ruled that the federal constitution permits economic development takings, 44 states adopted eminent domain reform laws that supposedly restricted such condemnations. Unfortunately, many of the new laws do little to actually constrain the use of eminent domain authority, often allowing the same old takings to continue under other names. Most commentators believed that the Missouri law was one such ineffectual reform, because, as Thomas explains, “it would seem that all a condemnor need do is throw in another reason — in addition to economic development — and it would be off the hook.” As he points out, courts in other states that ban takings “solely” or “primarily” for economic development have accepted such circumvention. In Jackson, however, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down a condemnation that, in addition to promoting economic development, would also supposedly enhance port facilities and “improve” river commerce. The Court ruled that these alternative rationales were not genuinely different from economic development because “”[t]he record demonstrates that the only manner in which the taking will ‘improve river commerce’ is by drawing more economic development into the area” and that any enhancement of port facilities would be of value only because it too promotes development.
The bill passed 32-20 in the state Senate on May 1 and is now being considered by the House Executive Committee. Gov. Pat Quinn has previously vetoed two Chicago casino bills in the past. However, while the governor still has concerns about this new casino bill, he has indicated he could sign, so long as gambling revenue funds education and ethics standards are tightened. (After all, four of Illinois’ last seven governors have gone to prison.) Yet casinos abusing eminent domain apparently hasn’t crossed Quinn’s mind.
As the IJ post notes, takings for the benefit of casino interests have occurred in other states, and often lead to the same sorts of abuses as other “economic development” condemnations of the type upheld by the federal Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London. Such takings are routinely used by politically powerful firms to acquire property from the politically weak. They also often destroy more economic value than they create. I discuss these problems in much more detail in this article.
In the aftermath of Kelo, some 44 states passed eminent domain reform laws intended to curb such abuses. But Illinois’ law is one of many that contain major loopholes that prevent them from providing much in the way of meaningful protection for property owners. The IJ post notes that Illinois’ 2006 law rates only a D+ under their grading scale.
A new law designed to help lure high-tech manufacturing jobs to Alabama does not give cities greater eminent domain powers, several people involved in the legislation said Monday….
state Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, said that’s simply not the case. Orr said the “Major 21st Century Manufacturing Zone Act” does nothing to change or broaden eminent domain laws….
State Sen. Bill Holtzclaw, R-Madison, said he is “very big on personal property owner rights” and would not have co-sponsored the legislation if he thought it might be used to expand the use of eminent domain.
This month, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley signed into law a bill that allows local officials to condemn private property and turn it over to private developers.
Alabama’s statutes had contained some of the best protections in the nation for property owners; officials couldn’t seize property for private development unless it was a true threat to human health and safety.
Welcome back to the bad old days.
Advertised as a tool to attract industry to Alabama, the new law (the Major 21st Century Manufacturing Zone Act) expands tax subsidies for companies that open a manufacturing facility of at least 250 acres. It also allows municipal officials to seize property for “private uses and purposes imbued with a public interest” like auto factories, biomedical facilities, and pharmaceutical plants.
Officials can now condemn property they deem “blighted,” which, since the statutory definition of the term is so subjective, could be nearly any property.
A longtime Towson University professor has resigned his post as the head of the city school system’s ethics panel amid allegations that his published academic articles contain content from dozens of sources without proper — or in some cases any — attribution.
University officials and journal publishers say they are reviewing several articles submitted by Benjamin A. Neil, a legal affairs professor, after a librarian at another university alerted them to the issue.
A Baltimore Sun review of five papers published by Neil shows passages with identical language and others with close similarities to scholarly journals, news publications, congressional testimony, blogs and websites. In many cases, there was no attribution.
Neil, who has taught at Towson for more than 20 years, says he properly attributed work from other authors.
Meanwhile, some of his colleagues across the country and authors of the original material who were contacted by The Sun criticized what they called “lazy plagiarism” and a breach of academic integrity. Experts say the incident highlights the pressures that professors feel to publish.
“It’s completely unacceptable conduct, particularly for a professor,” said Jeffrey Beall, a scholarly initiatives librarian at the University of Colorado, Denver who contacted Towson officials and journals about the alleged plagiarism.
On Thursday, March 14, I will be giving a talk on “Property Rights Since Kelo” at the University of Michigan Law School. The event will run from 11:45 to about 12:50.
I will cover both the legislative and judicial reactions to the Supreme Court’s controversial 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which ruled that the Fifth Amendment allows government to take property from one private owner and give it to another simply on the basis that the new owner might promote “economic development” in the area. Much has happened since Kelo, which generated the broadest legislative reaction of any decision in Supreme Court history, with 44 states and the federal government passing eminent domain reform laws in its wake. While important progress has been made in protecting property owners, much remains to be done.
This Thursday at 5 PM, I will be speaking on Kelo v. City of New London and post-Kelo eminent domain reform at South Texas College of Law in Houston. The talk will be held in the Emile Slohm conference roomon the 6th Floor, and is sponsored by the South Texas Federalist Society.

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