Real Estate & Property Law

Eminent Domain Running Amok

By Alan Ackerman

Every once in a while, abuse of the government is so strong that articles are published describing the ridiculous nature of the 'blight' findings as a basis for a condemnation.  When properties are truly blighted, this writer has no problem in a condemnation occurring in order to clean up an area.  However, to push this 94 year old man out of his 25 acre farm simply so a third party can develop the property is ridiculous.  

JS Online
    
Giefer, 94, has been farming his 25-acre Oak Creek property nearly his whole life. His family probably has owned the land since the Civil War - before Oak Creek was even a city.

None of that, however, prevented the city from contractually obligating itself to acquire Giefer's property and turn it over to WISPARK, a private developer, even though Giefer already had told city officials the land was not for sale.

Wisconsin no longer allows pure private-to-private transfers of land for the sole purpose of generating speculative economic benefits or increasing the tax base, so the city needed an excuse to take the land.

It, therefore, hired a consulting firm to conduct a study of the property and declare it "blighted" so it could take the property. But the property is not a nuisance and presents no health and safety risks to the public.

Thus, the city and its consultants ginned up the concept of "economic blight" and claimed that the property was "underutilized" and "impeded the sound growth" of the city.

As a result, Oak Creek was not only misapplying a blight designation normally used to redevelop urban slums; it also was attempting a type of taking that Wisconsin's citizens had overwhelmingly rejected just a few years ago.

Full post as published by National Eminent Domain Blog on June 17, 2010 (boomark / email).