Understanding Private Eminent Domain

The contribution of the private company to the community

In 2006, the Oakland Grandstand reported that Burlingame’s car row “provides 50 percent of the city’s sales tax revenue each year.”

In 2013, the Orange County Registry reported: “More than a quarter of San Juan Capistrano’s sales tax revenue came from local auto dealers in the 2010-11 fiscal year, which ended June 30…” *

So when a dealership needed an adjoining vacant lot to expand, was the city wrong to take the lot and sell it to the private dealership?

The money to buy the property came from the dealer. The adjoining lot had been vacant for years, and its seizure allowed the city to increase its tax revenue without taxing its citizens, and thus offer more services to its citizens for free.

One might say, “Well, that was a vacant property and not a grandmother’s house.” But that’s begging the question.

That employs the same logic as the old story about the guy who offers the girl $1,000 to sleep with him and she agrees, only for the guy to say “Would you sleep with me for $10?” and her answering “What do you think I am?”

Who she is was established by her acceptance of the $1,000 offer. After that, they were just haggling price.

If your answer to the above taking was “Yes”, then the philosophy of taking private property for private business is fine. Philosophy may not be right in the case of the vacant lot, but not in the case of Grandma’s house.

The distinction lies in the application of the law, not in the law itself.

The law

The landmark case of eminent domain was Kelo v. new london 545 US 469 (2005) 268 Conn. 1, 843 A. 2d 500. where the court held, in an 8-3 decision, that the general benefits a community enjoyed from economic growth qualified private redevelopment plans as a permissible “public use” under the “Condemnations Clause.” ” of the Fifth Amendment. In its ruling, the court noted, in part:

“The City has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide measurable benefits to the community, including, but not limited to, new jobs and increased tax revenue. As with other urban planning and development exercises,12 the City strives to coordinate a variety of commercial, residential, and recreational land uses, in the hope that they will form a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

As mentioned above, the Supreme Court voted in quelo it was 8 to 3. Could any reasonable person really believe that the judges are bad people because of their positions?

Can the power of private eminent domain be abused?

Sure you can.

But is the answer “abolish the law” or “abolish the abusers”?

When Congress thought that President Nixon had violated the constitution, it did not move to abolish the constitution, but instead moved to impeach the president.

Purpose of this Article

The purpose of this article is not to argue that private takings are good or bad, nor to write a legal treatise on the subject.

The purpose is to show that reasonable people can have different opinions and that their choices are not always between “right” and “wrong”.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, the renowned Supreme Court Justice, made a standing bet with lawyers that no one could give him a law where he couldn’t, in turn, provide an example of where that law, if applied, would have. a bad result.

Holmes lived to be 93 years old and no one won that bet. With each law proposed to him, Holmes provided an example where the application of the law would result in injustice.

Addition

In short, the question should not be whether the person or entity seeking private eminent domain enforcement is good or bad.

The questions should be: (1) whether or not the shot serves the greater good; and (2) are the people answering the question impartial and reasonable people?

On a December 7, 2009″California Eminent Domain Law“Blog, A.J. Hazarabedian opined that: “Taking property by condemnation to benefit a car dealership could create jobs and increase local tax revenue, but it is one of those uses of condemnation that needs to be carefully examined.

Is this really a taking for public use, or is the City using eminent domain for private gain and to benefit its own coffers? Eminent domain for true blight removal may well be appropriated as a public use; eminent domain for the sole purpose of benefiting a private car dealer and increasing local tax revenue is questionable.”

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*Note: The sales tax base with respect to automobile dealers does not always have the same result in all states.

In places like Texas and Missouri, because dealers do not pay sales tax in the cities where they are located, but where the buyer lives. In those cities, other businesses contribute most of the taxes.

In 2006 Thomas J. Erman, SIORVice president, NAI DESCO informed, in AreaDevelopment.com: “A developer wants to build a 476,000-square-foot shopping center that is estimated to produce $170 million in sales per year within the first five years. The project would require a car dealership to relocate to that site.”