Tag: eminent domain

Fight Erupts When City Takes Private Property for ‘Park’

A fight has erupted over a decision by the Long Island town of Southold to take private property that the owners of a chain of hardware stores bought for a new location.

The problem is that the town took the land against the wishes of the owners using eminent domain, but it had no legitimate reason for doing that.

According to officials at the Institute for Justice, that’s known because the city insisted it needed the land for a “park,” but that turned out to be a “passive park” with no cleanup, no improvements, and the remnants of an old home and greenhouse left there.

The IJ explained, ‘When every legal effort to stop someone from using their property has failed, can the government simply take the land using eminent domain? That is the question at the heart of a new U.S. Supreme Court petition filed by a family-owned hardware store business whose property was taken by a small Long Island town.”

It is the Brinkmann family whose members already have five Long Island stores and obtained the Southold property for another.

“The town did everything it could to stop construction. After failing to drive the Brinkmanns away by attempting to interfere with the Brinkmanns’ land purchase, then imposing an exorbitant fee for a market impact study that the town never performed after being paid, and even deploying a selectively enforced moratorium on building permits to stifle the Brinkmanns’ permit application; the town voted to take the land by eminent domain for a park,” the IJ said.

At the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges said, “the government can take your property for almost any reason at all—including because it just doesn’t like you—so long as the government lies about why it is using eminent domain,” explained IJ lawyer Jeff Redfern.

“This is a dangerous precedent, and the Supreme Court should take this opportunity to clarify that it is unconstitutional to use eminent domain in bad faith, simply to stop someone from making a lawful use of their property.”

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REGULATION VS. EMINENT DOMAIN: AN ALTERNATE APPROACH TO ‘THE UNIDENTIFIED ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA DISCLOSURE ACT OF 2023’

Earlier this year, legislative power and unexplained phenomena collided when U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Mike Rounds introduced the “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Disclosure Act of 2023.”

Contained within this groundbreaking amendment is a provision concerning “eminent domain,” a government legal tool that is often associated with infrastructure and public interest. However, in the context of UAP, a look at the implications, ethical challenges, and legal complexities tied to applying eminent domain to technology of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence (NHI) is warranted.

The UAP Act of 2023’s Eminent Domain clause has already sparked some debate amongst those with legal backgrounds that follow the subject. The current drafted legislation would allow the U.S. government to seize NHI technology and biological evidence. While it appears to grant access to undisclosed NHI discoveries for public benefit, the provision’s reach is broad, and will impact not only major defense contractors but also individuals, private corporations, and other entities involved in scientific explorations.

The challenge of appraising NHI technology for fair compensation and its potential disruption to national defense initiatives further complicates the matter.

What follows is an argument that introduces an alternative regulatory approach, which will help to promote compliance and transparency while preserving property rights and national security interests. The regulatory approach to the subject is a proper first step to safeguarding the balance between public interest and individual freedoms.

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County Eminent Domains the Strip Club Next Door to Make Room for More Parking

North Carolina strip club patrons might not be able to touch the dancers, but nothing stops the government from seizing the building they work in.

That’s the revealing truth in an eminent domain case out of Wilmington, North Carolina, where the New Hanover County government (which contains Wilmington) is trying to seize the neighboring Cheetah Premier Gentlemen’s Club to build what it claims is much-needed parking.

“The county identified a need to expand parking facilities to better accommodate our citizens when visiting the newly constructed government center. Exercising eminent domain to acquire the neighboring property is a legal and measured step towards fulfilling this need,” said County Manager Chris Coudriet in an emailed statement to Reason earlier this month.

The county commission voted to authorize eminent domain of the Cheetah Club during its late Monday night meeting on November 6. The resolution authorized the county to spend $2.36 million acquiring the club.

Conspicuously, the resolution authorizing the seizure of the club wasn’t on the commission’s agenda, and was only introduced in the final minutes of the meeting by Coudriet, reports local public radio station WHQR. The station also reports that Coudriet referred to the property only by its tax ID number and didn’t mention why the property was being seized, other than to say it was for public use.

That left the owners of both the business and the underlying property blindsided.

Property owner Jerry Reid describes the eminent domain resolution as “coming out of the blue.” Michael Barber, a lawyer for the owners of the Cheetah Club likewise said the first time he heard about the seizure was early Tuesday morning, after the commission vote.

The presence of such an “adult” business next to the county center of government has caused its fair share of embarrassment. One county commissioner told the local Port City Daily that “the optics have always been an issue.” North Carolina State Treasurer Dale Folwell also criticized county commissioners about their offices’ proximity to a strip club at a hearing earlier this year.

The sudden, seemingly surreptitious effort to seize the club has Barber speculating that the eminent domain effort has more to do with public appearances than public facilities.

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JPMorgan CEO suggests government seize private property to quicken climate initiatives

In his annual letter to shareholders, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon suggested that the U.S. government and climate conscious corporations may have to seize citizen’s private property to enact climate initiatives while there still time to stave off climate disasters.

Dimon declared Tuesday that “governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations” may need to invoke “eminent domain” in order to get the “adequate investments fast enough for grid, solar, wind and pipeline initiatives.”

“Eminent domain” is a legal term that describes the government using its power to expropriate private property for public use, provided the government provides private owners proper compensation.

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Texas School District Threatens to Seize 79-Year-Old Man’s Home for Stadium Parking Lot

A family in Houston, Texas, is at risk of having their generational home seized to make way for the expansion of the adjacent high school football stadium’s parking lot.

In April, the Aldine Independent School District voted to authorize the use of eminent domain to seize the home and surrounding acre of land currently owned and occupied by 79-year-old Travis Upchurch, reported the Houston Chronicle in July.

The land has been in Upchurch’s family since 1916 when his relatives first immigrated to the area from Sweden. At the time they settled there, the area was predominately agricultural, dominated by dairy farms and pecan trees.

Beginning in the 1970s, Aldine ISD started purchasing up the land around the Upchurch property as part of the construction of its current football stadium. Today, it’s surrounded on three sides by stadium parking. The vacant lot abutting the fourth side of the property is also owned by the district.

“My dad has pretty much been in a high school football stadium parking lot since then,”  Travis Upchurch’s daughter, Tara Upchurch, tells Reason.

Tara Upchurch says that she had expected Aldine ISD would want to buy the land once her father passed away. Her family’s expectation was that until then, he’d be able to stay in their longtime family home.

That expectation was upended in June when Travis Upchurch received a letter in the mail informing him that the school district was intent on purchasing his land as part of a $50 million rebuild of the existing stadium.

“It was pretty shocking,” says Tara Upchurch. “It was really hard to process the loss of it.”

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Elderly artist forced to vacate shack he’s maintained for nearly 80 years

An elderly Massachusetts artist is being kicked out of the Cape Cod shack he maintained for nearly 80 years as the National Park Service begins granting long-term leases to new renters.

Salvatore Del Deo, 94, resided in the Provincetown dune shack for the past 77 summers, where he paid taxes and was deeded the dwelling, according to CBS News.

But the Park Service does not recognize Del Deo as the owner and has ordered him to vacate the shack.

The artist and veteran arrived in Provincetown in 1946, where he met Jeanne “Frenchie” Schnell, who built a remote dune shack along the Cape Cod National Seashore as Del Deo helped maintain the abode.

In 1953, after serving in the Korean War, Del Deo returned to Provincetown, where he met his future wife, Josephine, at a party.

Schnell gifted the shack to Del Deo and his wife as a honeymoon suite.

The Park Service took possession of 19 dune shacks in the ’60s through eminent domain, offering the current owners lifetime leases, and the new renters signing long-term leases, while others only leased year-to-year.

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Seize property to build wind and solar farms, says JP Morgan chief

The chief executive of JP Morgan has suggested that governments should seize private land to build wind and solar farms in order to meet net zero targets. 

Jamie Dimon, the longstanding boss of the Wall Street titan who donates to the Democratic Party, said green energy projects must be fast-tracked as the window for averting the most costly impacts of global climate change is closing. 

In his annual shareholder letter, Mr Dimon said: “Permitting reforms are desperately needed to allow investment to be done in any kind of timely way. 

“We may even need to evoke eminent domain – we simply are not getting the adequate investments fast enough for grid, solar, wind and pipeline initiatives.”

Eminent domain is when a government or state agency carries out a compulsory purchase of private property for public use and compensates the asset holder. 

The proposal is unusual, especially coming from the longest-serving chief executive of a Wall Street bank, and could stir controversy as states in the US seek to crackdown on seizure orders. 

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North Carolina Using Eminent Domain To Seize Homes and a Church for Electric Car Factory

VinFast is the first company to develop electric vehicles in its native Vietnam, and it’s now making inroads into the American market. Last year, it announced it would build a factory in North Carolina that would manufacture both electric cars and batteries. Then, last week, the company said it would not be able to begin production at the facility until 2025, rather than the initial summer 2024 target.

An upstart company needing extra time to fulfill its promises is hardly news. But in this case, a lot hangs in the balance, as the North Carolina government has pledged to use eminent domain to evict multiple homeowners, businesses, and a church.

When Gov. Roy Cooper announced the deal in March 2022, he called the project “transformative” and said it would “bring many good jobs to our state.” CNBC cited the project when it named North Carolina America’s Top State for Business, marveling that Cooper, a Democrat, was able to strike such business-friendly deals with a General Assembly dominated by Republicans.

While it was only founded in 2017, VinFast has the backing of Vietnam’s wealthiest citizen and has been valued somewhere between $20 billion and $60 billion. For the North Carolina factory, the company pledged to spend $4 billion and create 7,500 jobs within five years. In exchange, the state promised incentives totaling $1.2 billion, including $450 million toward site preparation; $400 million from Chatham County, where the facility would be located; and a $316 million grant over 32 years in which the company is reimbursed for the state income tax money its employees pay.

But taxpayer money isn’t the only thing the state is giving away. As part of its site preparation process, the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) also planned roadway improvements to accommodate the traffic a new factory would create. Those plans would require displacing a total of 27 homes, five businesses, and Merry Oaks Baptist Church, which has stood on its spot since 1888.

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Texas Outlet Fabricates Story Of Libertarian Inciting Violence Over Eminent Domain

As RedState aptly noted in a Thursday piece, many seem to believe that local media outlets are significantly more true to the facts than those who cover news nationally. 

Unfortunately, it turns out that smaller news outlets also fall short of the truth.

The Current, which is the self-described “premiere multimedia source of alternative news, events and culture” for San Antonio, Texas, since 1986, recently put out a report disingenuously suggesting that Bexar County Libertarian Party head JR Haseloff attempted to incite violence over the city’s plan to use eminent domain to seize control of a man’s bar for city renovations. 

This was referring to an address Haseloff delivered to the city council arguing in favor of allowing Vince Catu, the bar’s owner, to maintain control of his property. According to their reporting, Haseloff “suggested that some property-rights advocates may resort to violence if San Antonio uses eminent domain to take over downtown bar Moses Rose’s Hideout.”

“While out of an abundance of caution, we marked this as a peaceful protest, I am here to testify to you that there are men, women, organizations and individuals across the state of Texas that are very much prepared to sacrifice much more to prevent your theft of this man’s property,” Haseloff said in his remarks to the city council. “I can only pray that you and politicians across Texas are receiving this message.”

He added, “Let me be clear, we will not stand idly by and watch you steal property from one of our fellow Texans. We will fight, and we will win.”

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Homeowners find out their town has promised their houses to big corporation

Eminent domain is the legal concept that government can take people’s private property – with just compensation – when it is needed for a public benefit like a road or a bridge.

But in recent years governments repeatedly have used the scheme to take private property – and then have turned it over to another private owner, and such disputes have come up repeatedly in court.

There’s another fight erupting now.

This time it’s the Institute for Justice that is fighting on behalf of homeowners who live along Burnet Road in Onandaga County, New York.

That’s because county officials – and Micron Technology – have announced plans for the company to build a microchip facility in the White Pine Commerce Park in Clay.

The proposed construction site includes not only parts of the commerce park, which largely has been vacant since the 1990s, but the private properties of multiple homeowners.

“My father built this home, and my family has lived here for decades. I’m not going to sit back and let the county take my family’s home and hand it over to a private corporation,” explained one homeowner, Paul Richer, in a statement released by the IJ.

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