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I was Kelo bloggin’ before Kelo bloggin’ was cool

A few interesting eminent domain issues since the Kelo decision:

First, heh.

Bubba (sorry, but R. Neal doesn’t quite roll off the keyboard yet) details some of TVA’s eminent domain dealings past and present:

As part of the great Rural Electrification of the 1930s under FDR, the Tennessee Valley Authority was founded to control flooding, generate power, and improve the lives and welfare of the people in the valley.

Now a bureaucratic behemoth and a government within a government with its own police force and no elected officials, TVA stomps around the valley doing pretty much whatever it wants for the benefit of TVA and a few rich people.

In 1964, TVA acquired – by eminent domain – 179 miles of shoreline to create the 10,370 acre Nickajack Lake near Chattanooga in the scenic Tennessee River Gorge, the “Grand Canyon of Tennessee.” As with all TVA reservoir projects, people were removed from their homes and farms, by force if necessary, and paid a token sum for their land and their troubles.

In the latest example of TVA hubris, land taken from 82 families by eminent domain for Nickajack Lake was “auctioned” to a real estate developer for a $450 million upscale lakefront gated community development:

One problem is only one bidder was at the auction.

And in Florida:

Officials of a poor, predominantly black Florida town plan to relocate about 6,000 residents to make room for a billion-dollar yachting and housing complex.

The coastal community of Rivera Beach in Palm Beach County may use eminent domain, if necessary, to claim 400 acres of land for the project, The Washington Times reported Monday.

“This is a community that’s in dire need of jobs, which has a median income of less than $19,000 a year,” Mayor Michael Brown said. “If we don’t use this power, cities will die.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld the use of eminent domain for economic purposes, ruling against a group of New London, Conn., homeowners fighting a proposed corporate development.

The City Council last week chose a New Jersey-based developer, Viking Inlet Harbor Properties LLC, to oversee the project, which is expected to displace 2,000 houses.

So, they are displacing (a nice term for bought or booted out) 2000 folks for a yacht club.

Pun of the day goes to Goldstein with: Kelo-ing me softly.

Tar and feathers come to mind.

5 Responses to “I was Kelo bloggin’ before Kelo bloggin’ was cool”

  1. bob Says:

    “Tar and feathers come to mind.”

    I guess I am not as forgiving as you; lead and cordite come to my mind. Seriously.

  2. hellbent Says:

    That Florida project sounds like exactly the kind of thing the Supreme Court tried to exclude from the Kelo ruling. New London approved a comprehensive revitalization plan that had many components. The plan was not devised with any particular private interest in mind. In fact, the private interests entered the picture after the master plan was approved.

    The Rivera Beach effort, however, seems to be exactly the sort of government-running-interference-for-a-developer scheme many people wrongly thought Kelo enabled. Will the poor, black community be able to mount a legal challenge? They probably could if all the Kelo-incensed bloggers rally to their side and put their money where their mouth is.

  3. SayUncle Says:

    Hellbent, then you’ll love this case in which they are taking the land from a developer to give to another developer. Both developers have basically the same project planned.

  4. Kevin Baker Says:

    I was thinking ropes and trees.

  5. hellbent Says:

    That NJ case sounds a bit like a proposed eminent domain taking in downtown Knoxville. Mark Saroff owns several buildings on Jackson Ave that he intends to renovate. Of course, his plans seem rather nebulous, and it’s not clear he has either the money or investors to actually afford renovation, and his buildings may qualify as blighted, though they are probably not so far gone as to require demolition. The city has declared a a redevelopment zone that is larger than just his buildings, which would appear to satisfy the Kelo parameters.

    I wonder how concrete the NJ developer’s plans are.

Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.

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