Real Estate & Property Law

Tinicum

By Alan Ackerman

Delco Times

U.S. Rep. Joseph Sestak, D-7, Of Edgmont, said Sunday the real linchpin to halting the Federal Aviation Administration's NY/NJ/PHL Metropolitan Airspace Redesign lies in Tinicum.

Philadelphia, as owner of Philadelphia International Airport, hopes to acquire some 72 homes and 10 businesses in the township as part of a proposed capacity enhancement plan.

Under an agreement that expired in 2007, the city required township approval before it could buy land in Tinicum, but no new agreement has been reached. Philadelphia does not have eminent domain outside its borders.

According to a Government Accountability Office report published last year, the FAA did not do a cost-benefit analysis before implementing the redesign, which Sestak said only reduces flight delays by less than a minute in its current form.

Delays could be further reduced were Philadelphia to acquire the Tinicum properties for the CEP, said Sestak, but the $5 billion price tag for that plan is prohibitive and the resulting delay reductions are minimal.

He is instead urging PHL to employ smaller regional airports for commuter flights, which would be far less costly and have a greater impact on delays.

Here, we have what all too many around airports are learning or have, unfortunately, learned. The potential for diminution of use in face of a contemplated future eminent domain act is substantial. Facing a future condemnation places a severe blight on the property, which should be disregarded at the time of the acquisition.

Full post as published by National Eminent Domain Blog on May 20, 2009 (boomark / email).