Eminent Domain - How this could affect you...

After a piece on KALW's Your Call Radio this morning (Real Audio archive can be downloaded here), I wanted to bring up the concept of eminent domain, or the taking of private property for public use.

There was a landmark supreme court decision in June of this year involving a case in New London, CT where private property was 'seized' by the city (i.e. houses torn down) and turned over to private developers who created new developments (a mixture of commercial and residential) as part of a larger Pfizer campus. The CNN.com Law Center has good coverage of this case in an article from June 24th. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is quoted in the dissenting opinion as saying "The court today significantly expands the meaning of public use. It holds that the sovereign may take private property currently put to ordinary private use, and give it over for new, ordinary private use." Ouch.

The original goal of this law was to allow cities to make decisions that were in the best interest of the public and would benefit the many rather than the few. It also allowed for the city to pay market-rate prices for the properties seized. Both of these items came into question and ultimately fell at the hands of the supreme court.

They take this idea one step further in CNN/Money where Parija Bhatnagar discusses the potential abuses that could come from the big box stores that are looking to push deeper and deeper into urban and residential locations.

As I posted on July 29th, the San Francisco Planning Commission has no problem approving a Home Depot right at the entrance to South Bernal Heights. How long will it be before they start deciding that certain neighborhoods would better serve the public need if they were full of big-box shopping instead of homes?

It's a scary propsition, for sure...