Court Opinion

ID: 9717562
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:06:02.968119+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:54.027236
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE KUEHN, specially concurring: This case is more troublesome than the majority opinion would seem to suggest. Staunch proponents for economic progress would quarrel with our essential judgment that the expansion of Gateway parking served a purely private, rather than public, purpose. They would argue that the legislature clearly contemplated eminent domain’s use in the manner employed and foreordained that racetrack parking lots could serve a public purpose. Because this seems apparent from the statute that created SWIDA and empowered it to act, we need to examine whether that statute rather than SWIDA’s conduct in this case contravenes article I, section 15, of the Illinois Constitution. SWIDA was created with one overriding goal in mind — to promote and facilitate economic progress in the southwestern part of Illinois. Lawmakers directed as follows: “It shall be the duty of [SWIDA] to promote development within the geographic confines of Madison and St. Clair counties. [SWIDA] shall use the powers herein conferred upon it to assist in the development, construction!,] and acquisition of industrial, commercial, housing!,] or residential projects within Madison and St. Clair counties.” (Emphasis added.) 70 ILCS 520/5 (West 1996). The legislature conferred eminent domain powers as one of the ways SWIDA could meet this mandate. It did not expect SWIDA to launch industrial, commercial, or housing projects as publicly owned and operated enterprises. Clearly, the power to condemn property was conferred to assist in land acquisition for development projects engaged in by private venture capital. No one expected entrepreneurs who acquired land through SWIDA’s condemnation powers to develop that land for public, rather than private, use. Legislators simply expected those entrepreneurs to develop the land in ways that would put people to work, enhance the economic landscape, improve the quality and enjoyment of life, and increase government’s ability to provide services to the populace. This was the planned public purpose SWIDA’s eminent-domain powers were designed to achieve. The aim was for industrial, commercial, and housing development by private investors to advance societal interests through the widespread economic impact that development would create. The social and economic advantages that private development would offer the public at large were deemed a proper vindication for land confiscation and ownership transfer. The legislature intended that individual property rights yield to this greater good. SWIDA’s eminent-domain powers were thus conferred to promote the legislature’s quintessential public purpose — advancement of the region’s overall economic health. When they granted SWIDA eminent-domain powers, legislators fully expected SWIDA to take private property from unwilling sellers and convey it to private developers. There was no other reason to confer those powers. Municipal and county governments could already exercise eminent domain for all other reasons. Moreover, legislators harbored no illusion that the developers who benefited from government-assisted land acquisition would be motivated by anything other than personal gain and profit. Clearly, the law that created SWIDA contemplated the precise action taken by SWIDA in this case. This intent is apparent from the specific examples of commercial projects that SWIDA was to promote with the exercise of its eminent-domain powers: “[A]ny project, including *** any cultural facilities of a for-profit *** type including but not limited to *** racetracks, stadiums, convention centers, exhibition halls, arenas, opera houses and theaters, *** restaurants, velodromes, coliseums, sports[-]training facilities, parking facilities, *** and port facilities.” (Emphasis added.) 70 ILCS 520/3 (West 1996). SWIDA acted as it was authorized and intended to act. It used eminent domain to promote a commercial project as that term was defined by our legislature. It facilitated the acquisition of land for a parking lot that would enhance a racetrack enterprise that offers unquestionable economic boon to the region. The social and economic advancement that a privately operated racetrack in need of parking facilities could generate was the legislature’s public-purpose justification for eminent-domain action. Therefore, SWIDA had the authority to exercise the right of eminent domain in the manner employed, and the power’s use was constitutional if the statute that conveyed the power and intended such manner of use comports with the constitution. Since SWIDA’s actions fit our legislature’s design, we should address the legislative determination that economic development and advancement is a public purpose sufficient to validate the use of eminent-domain powers. If such determination is constitutionally sound, SWIDA was empowered to do what it did. Whether economic development and advancement constitutes a valid reason to take private property and convey it to different private interests is a question under current debate in all quarters of the country. See D. Starkman, Take and Give: Condemnation Is TJsed to Hand One Business Property of Another, Wall St. J., Dec. 2, 1998, at Al. The more precise question is whether legislation can constitutionally authorize a government agency to take an owner’s land and make it the private property of a new owner because the new owner is capable of putting the land to a more productive use and/or a use that better serves the broader social or economic interests of the public at large. Until this question is resolved, owners of land next to private enterprises that attract people and make money, enterprises like casinos and racetracks, will continue to relinquish their ownership rights to the social and economic progress that a private parking lot can define. Our pagination rules limit extensive scrutiny of this question. Nonetheless, its answer seems simple enough. If property ownership is to remain what our forefathers intended it to be, if it is to remain a part of the liberty we cherish, the economic by-products of a private capitalist’s ability to develop land cannot justify a surrender of ownership to eminent domain. If a government agency can decide property ownership solely upon its view of who would put that property to more productive or attractive use, the inalienable right to own and enjoy property to the exclusion of others will pass to a privileged few who constitute society’s elite. The rich may not inherit the earth, but they most assuredly will inherit the means to acquire any part of it they desire. The attraction of private venture capital is a worthy public goal, and the legislature provided SWIDA with numerous ways to accomplish it. While this legislation offers unquestionable potential for the kind of social and economic advancement that follows capital investment, it exceeds sacred parameters when it empowers SWIDA to lure private investors with the promise of any prime land those investors want to take. This part of SWIDA’s statutory power offers dubious progress. It is, after all, akin to the tyranny our forefathers fled. Our heritage stems in part from the aversion to the King’s use of property to convey favor upon a privileged nobility. It betrays that heritage to rekindle the practice. Article I, section 15, of the Illinois Constitution forbids eminent domain’s exercise for private use. Because I do not believe that economic development constitutes a public purpose that can vindicate eminent domain’s use to assist private developers, I think that SWIDA’s condemnation powers contravene this constitutional imperative. For this reason, I specially concur. I also concur in the denial of the motion for contempt.