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December 1, 2009
EMINENT DOMAINIA: Goldstein v. ESDC fallout continues
Barstow Desert Dispatch, No good news on property rights
For a while now I have been concerned with the issue of whether any argument advanced in support of violating private property rights might have something going for it. Some argue, for example, that since one’s private property isn’t always the result of one’s own work and often even stems from plain old luck — as when the price on one’s home rises because of market conditions one had no hand in — one’s property rights cannot be inviolate, let alone inalienable. Others claim that when majorities decide, after widespread public consideration and discussion that someone’s resources or wealth should be taken from them for some important project, this suffices to limit or even void the right to private property.
The second argument underlies the recent ruling of New York State’s Court of Appeals in support of the decision of the Empire State Development Corporation to condemn privately owned homes and small businesses so as to replace these with Bruce Ratner’s ”Atlantic Yards” project of 16 huge skyscrapers. The court didn’t rule exactly as did the U.S. Supreme Court back in July 2005, in the case of Kelo v. City of New London, Conn., which opened the door to take property simply to develop it better than how it is being used. The New York case backed the taking of private property because it is considered to be blighted. This is the “reasoning” of the lynch mob. And it is ominous because the very point of basic rights to one’s life, liberty, property (or whatever is involved in governing one’s own affairs — in other words, one’s sovereignty) is to bar others from being intruders, no matter what.
NewsReal, Poor People Will Soon Be Homeless — Thanks to ACORN
New York State’s highest court has cleared the way for an ambitious $5 billion taxpayer-funded development to be built in Brooklyn.
On his TV show yesterday Glenn Beck pointed out that a group that claims to protect the interests of poor people, ACORN, helped make possible the deal that will make current inhabitants of the Atlantic Yards project footprint homeless. ACORN has long prided itself on fighting the so-called gentrification of neighborhoods as rising property values force the poor to move.
But not anymore. ACORN sold out in exchange for a bailout.
CoStar Group, NY Court: $5 Bil. Atlantic Yards Project Can Proceed
According to the 6-1 ruling by the state's highest court, a finding by the Empire State Development Corp., which oversees economic development in New York, that the 22-acre area met the legal definition of blighted was sufficient to take the land. Opponents, including residents and landowners, argued that the state can legally only take land for public use, and the Atlantic Yards seizure is unconstitutional because it benefits private interests.
Posted by eric at December 1, 2009 11:26 AM