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Current Events » in reply to Once more: If you don't like this definition of "public use"...

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Fox — (archived)

As Mary Anne said here (currently the last post in the thread):

"There has to be a project on the table."

And there will, undoubtedly, be public hearings. I'm having a hard time envisioning a municipality with enough cojones to contemplate eminent domain for commercial development that doesn't also have a city council, a planning commission and a zoning board. Those are major steps in due process, and the perfect opportunity to establish whether or not a particular project is "in the public good."

Included in the article about the Kelo vs. New London decision which appeared in Friday's KC Star were two more incidents of the same sort listed in the blog Tom linked to -- both from the Kansas side of the border. It was also stated that Missouri's laws are much more restrictive, permitting the kind of taking in the Kelo case only if the land in question is "blighted" (i.e., the sort of development one associates with brownlands reclamation, historically confined to abandoned urban industrial districts).

The point is: Neither state's law is struck down by the Kelo decision. The citizens of Missouri have lost no protection. The citizens of Kansas, if they choose, may remedy their situation in their municipal councils and the state legislature.

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In case anyone wants to know, my personal reaction to a government seizing land for a commercial project is mixed. I've seen brownlands projects (worked on one or two, as well). They're a huge, costly mess to deal with, related to what previously occupied the land. The economic success of the new use remains a gamble, as it does anywhere new commercial development occurs. But, the people who live nearby are always thankful for the improvement. On the other hand, the idea of taking residential properties -- unless they're unfit for habitation -- for yet another office building or big box shopping sprawl is, to me, fundamentally reprehensible.

But that's when you start to fight it -- in the planning stages.

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