Baltimore Uses Eminent Domain to Take 1,001 Properties Since 2001
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If you are a property owner in the city of Baltimore, beware, they may be coming to take your property next. And if you live in a poor or middle class community, odds are the city will decide where you live is not good enough for you and take your property to help you live better. Of course, after the development and improvements are done, you may not be able to afford it, but that is of no concern.
Eminent Domain is a crooked politicians best friend. It can be used to reward campaign donations, provide jobs to supporters, and raise the tax base in one fell swoop. Of course, if you are not in the political loop, you home or business may be displaced, but that is of no concern to the politicians. Odds are you could not help them anyway. And most likely you will be forced to move so you will not even be able to vote against them. You are expendable.
The Baltimore Development Corp., the city’s economic development arm, is working to acquire several hundred properties for projects scattered all over the city, according to M.J. “Jay” Brodie, BDC president. Over the past decade, the BDC acquired 500 to 600 properties for development projects, he estimated.
The city’s Housing Department also is claiming real estate. It has acquired 6,169 properties since 2001, 1,001 of those through condemnation. Many have been purchased to clear the way for the remaking of the blighted Middle East neighborhood near Johns Hopkins Hospital.
“We see the opportunity for development and a lot more interest from developers, builders and retailers, more than I’ve ever seen, but the interest can’t equate to projects unless we are assembling sites,” Brodie said. Without the power of eminent domain, “there would be holdouts of property which would make the larger picture of redevelopment impossible to achieve.”
The taking of private property for economic development was given a powerful boost by a Supreme Court decision a year ago in which the court backed the town of New London, Conn.’s power to seize homes in an unblighted area to make way for a new convention center, hotel, condos and shops.
The ruling affirmed the legality of the increasing use of eminent domain for urban redevelopment, a popular trend in the Northeast, where many cities are battling long-standing urban blight.
Property-rights activists and advocates for poor city residents have argued in the New London case and others since that taking land from a private owner is a violation of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, which forbids the taking of property by government except for “public use.” via the baltimoresun.com.
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Comment by fliprent on 24 April 2008:
The worst part is it’s more about the money than it is about urban renewal. The Hopkins Property that I am rehabbing is proof that they could care less that you are actually raising the value through rehabbing the property.