Atlantic Yards: A Chance to Mitigate "Kelo"? [Updated]
By Flagstaff Posted in Law — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The Atlantic Yards case in Brooklyn could be a chance for the Supreme Court to mitigate Kelo, or it could be just another brick in the wall separating the Constitution from the People it is supposed to protect.
Private individual homeowners are being evicted to allow a rich private developer to build high-tax, high-rise apartments, high- and low-priced housing, etc.
We shall see if the Supremes find some distiction between this case and Kelo, or if they grant the original homeowners a part of the profits (that would be a way to make it more fair), or if they just discard them as a minor inconvenience as they did Susette Kelo, et al.
Find more below.
UPDATE
The Court sniffed and looked away.
From Fox Business News:
In declining to hear the case, the Supreme Court affirmed the State of New York's right to use eminent domain relating to Atlantic Yards. Today's development follows prior defeats for project opponents on the use of eminent domain at both the District Court and Court of Appeals levels.
It seems impossible that the first decision was rendered as it was, but we can hope that the Justices do read the papers after all, and that they read the right ones, at that. Probably a vain hope, but a hope nonetheless.
The "takings" clause was clearly written to protect citizens from the power of government to take their property for things like creating wealth for someone whom the government could tax more than the original owner. Perhaps the SC could create a precedent that the original owners have to be paid not only "fairly" for their property, but they must also be given a share of profits, tax-free, without reduction for the "fair" compensation already paid. 1% to each homeowner might make these projects a bit less attractive to developers.
Their decision is expected to be announced on Monday, June 23.
Quite a few states have already beefed up their own protection against improper takings in reaction to the wrong Kelo ruling. Those were the newspaper stories I hope the justices have read and paid attention to.
I thought it was long ago settled that the 5th Amendment applied to states as well as to the Fed.
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
That get involved in this kind of thing.
The fed seems more oriented to giving tax and borrowed money away.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
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I am really conflicted on this.
On the one hand you have liberal states seizing peoples property so the greedy and politically connected can steal it. Really not what the country should be about.
On the the other, this really isn't the province of the federal government. When this starts to happen in your state, it is time to throw the thieving bums out of office.
New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are all problem spots on this. They all could use enemas.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777