Real Estate & Property Law

Regional Airport Fight

By Alan Ackerman

Delco Times

I think the idea of a regional airport authority will be another ploy by Philadelphia to do a land grab of properties surrounding the airport.
It will be the same as the land grab in Southwest Philadelphia back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Big real estate corporations speculated throughout the area known as the 'Meadows.' People were forced to move out of the area through condemnation.
Having an airport authority will make it easy to force people out of Tinicum Township. People in Ridley Park, Prospect Park and Norwood will be next on the agenda.
Once the airport authority is established, there will be no stopping the greed of Philadelphia to swallow up viable taxpaying communities to feed their coffers

    The Delco Regional Airport is like so many others.  The smaller Delaware County area in Tinicum Township especially, is minor in the greater overall plans of the Philadelphia Regional area.  Eminent domain proceedings will be utilized in order to take large tracts of land for airport expansion.
    This dispute between the local community and the Airport Authority controlled by a larger city is common.  A similar fight occurred when a parallel runway was planned at the Detroit Wayne County Metropolitan Airport.  Usually, fights over control of a small community's destiny are subservient to the interest of the larger city.

Full post as published by National Eminent Domain Blog on January 07, 2010 (boomark / email).