BiggerPockets Founder · HI · Member since 2008 · 16k+ posts · 5k+ votes
Someone suggested that we start a discussion about land rights, as government has recently begun to use eminent domain to benefit not only the public interest, but to benefit developers and individuals. :crying:
I've seen too many stories on the news where people are losing their homes and businesses, not for the completion of a new highway or public service, but for the construction of private developments or projects.
If we cannot trust the government to protect our rights to own property, where do we stand as a free country?
Lets see how everyone feels about the subject. . .
It is certainly an abuse of power and I think the law behind it needs refinement to prevent such abuse. However, how do you argue against the people who are using it that they need to change it so they can't do that anymore? It has happened where i live where a state school offered money to the owner of a property who turned it down because he didn't want to move. The school then turned to the state and used eminent domain to get the property.
I feel that there needs to be serious justification for something like this to be allowed but I don't know how you could stop some sort of corruption from occuring unless the laws are re-written. Do other countries have this?
Johns Hopkins is going through this. Its a hospital and a university, but they want to take (ED through the city) some mostly abandoned housing for a bio-tech park. Not necessarily a public service, but it was proposed by a pretty necessary entity. Which way do you go on this one? They have offered to buy all of the properties, but some of the few remaining don't want to sell.
Personally, I agree with Joshua and Rise. Eminent Domain has been seriously abused as of late and it needs to be corrected. The problem stems from using ED for "the greater good of the public." Now lawyers define job creation and a city's tax base as public good. The theory goes ... we have 500 homes paying $1000.00 in property taxes a year or we can have a business paying $2M in pt.
Another problem is people's attention span. This made Newsweek eight months ago, people griped and then forgot about it. For the most part, the laws haven't changed. Thank you Joshua for keeping this from going down the memory hole.