"Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." Thus the Bill of Rights specifies the only purpose for eminent domain: "public use".
Since then, government has used eminent domain to acquire land for public use. Roads, schools, parks, military bases, and police stations were essential public facilities that took priority over individual property rights. Private real estate transactions, on the other hand, were always voluntary agreements between individuals.
Redevelopment has changed all that.
Under redevelopment, "public use" now includes privately owned shopping centers, auto malls and movie theaters. "Public use" is now anything a favored developer wants to do with another individual's land. Eminent domain is used to effect what once were purely private transactions.
Its use nearly always favors large developers at the expense of small property owners. In a typical redevelopment project, a developer is given an "exclusive negotiating agreement," or the sole right to develop property still owned by others.
Once such an agreement is made, small property owners are pressured to sell to the redevelopment agency, which acquires the land on behalf of the developer. If refused, the agency holds a public hearing to determine "public need and necessity" to impose eminent domain. By law, this must be an impartial hearing. In reality, the agency has already committed itself to acquire the property for the developer, so there is little doubt of the outcome.
Whole areas of cities have been acquired, demolished and handed over to developers to recreate in their own image. Historic buildings, local businesses and unique neighborhoods are replaced by generic developments devoid of the special flavor that once gave communities their identity.
Typical is the experience of Anaheim. Having demolished its historic central business district in the mid-1970s, the redevelopment agency recently hired consultants to help restore the identity of a downtown that no longer exists. "The complete eradication of the traditional business district has left nothing for the community to relate to as their downtown," admits an internal city memo.
Small business owners are compensated and relocated, but often in distant areas far from their established customer base. Cut off from the community that nurtured them, they often cannot survive.
Small property owners have little chance to participate in redevelopment projects. Consultants and redevelopment planners prefer to work with one huge parcel under a single ownership. Entrepreneurs and homeowners just get in the way.
Indeed, one of the definitions of blight is that of "irregularly shaped lots with multiple ownerships," to be solved by "consolidating parcels" for an outside developer to control. The variety of land owners and uses that gives cities their individuality becomes an excuse for expropriation.
Legislative attempts to protect small property owners have all been derailed by pro- redevelopment forces in Sacramento. Eminent domain is defended as a tool of "last resort." Yet eminent domain lies at the heart of the coercion that makes redevelopment possible-and destructive.
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