WITH ITS Norway spruce trees and old wooden farmhouse, the I 40 acre property in Bristol,
Conn., had long been home to Frank and John Bugryn. They'd grown up on the land their
father purchased over 60 years ago, and hoped to spend the rest of their days there,
surrounded by a lifetime of memories. That was before Yarde Metals, one of Bristol's fastest
growing businesses, needed a new facility.
In the summer of 1996, the city asked if the Bugryns' land would do asked if the Bugryns' land
would do. Company president Craig Yarde decided that it would - and, indeed, wrote to
Bristol's mayor, suggesting that he might move his business to nearby Southington unless
the city got him what he wanted - 22 acres, at about $35,000 each.
The Bugryns didn't want to sell, and were especially unhappy when an appraiser they hired
valued the land at almost $80,000 per acre. The city upped its offer by a few thousand dollars
an acre, but after fruitless negotiation and a court fight, Bristol forced the sale through
"eminent domain" -a government power meant to take property for public uses, such as
roads or bridges.
John Bugryn can't understand how the city can get away with this. "They're taking our land so
that a private business can make a killing," he says in anger. The family is still fighting in
court. Ironically, Yarde Metals decided to leave Bristol anyway. But this is no help to the
Bugryns. The city still holds title to their land, and will eventually transfer it to someone else.
UNDER THE FEDERAL and state constitutions, governments cannot take private property,
except for a public use. And when they do, the owner is supposed to be justly compensated.
It's not working out that way. "In the last ten years, cities have started using eminent domain
for the benefit of particular persons, not the public." says Glen Sodd. a Texas attorney. "This
is a terrible problem around the country." Sodd adds that the individuals whose property is
taken often do not get fair prices.
In case after case, officials justify these "takings" by claiming that the public purpose is to
promote economic development or keep jobs in their city. There is often an additional motive.
As Bristol's Mayor Frank Nicastro, Sr., said in a legal deposition, "If Yarde Metals were to build
a new facility in Bristol, [that] would increase our tax rolls.
Scott Bullock, a senior attorney at Washington, D. C.'s, Institute for Justice (a nonprofit,
public-interest law firm), speaks for many who are outraged by the argument Nicastro and
others make. "They want to make the ownership of property dependent on who can pay the
most taxes," he charges.
And that's just what happened in Hurst, Texas, when Simon Property Group of Indianapolis,
along with the city, sought to have a small subdivision of modest, single-story brick houses
razed to make a parking lot for Simon's North East Mall.
Hurst was eager to please. "The North East Mall is the largest property taxpayer in the city,"
city manager Allan Weegar told Reader's Digest. "We were trying to protect our economic
base."
Leonard and Donna Prohs, on the other hand, wanted to protect their economic base - the
house where they'd lived for 27 years. Lenard who works nights as a baggage handler for
American Eagle Airlines was among the ten homeowners who declined to sell to the Simon
Group at the prices offered.
The city invoked eminent domain, and the homeowners sued. But in May 1997, Texas District
Court Judge Fred Davis ruled that Hurst could take their houses.
In a terrible coincidence, Donna Prohs started having trouble walking the very next day after
the judges decision; Doctors diagnosed an aggressive and inoperable brain cancer.
Leonard stayed by her side at the hospital for weeks, until one step ahead of the bulldozers,
he had to return home to clear out their last belongings.
Prohs lawyer begged the city to give him extra time. The city Refused.
Leonard Prohs left Donna's side on a Tuesday night; she died the next Thursday. In less than
a week says Prohs, "I lost my wife, I lost my home, and I lost my neighbors."
Hurst officials say their refusal to give Prohs extra time was a communication breakdown."
They say they did not know that
Donna Prohs was terminally ill.
According to Phyllis Duval, a widow whose husband was a Carpenter, agents of the Simon
Group played hardball. "They tried to intimidate us with the threat of eminent domain," she
Says.
The Simon Group says that their agents did not discuss eminent domain, but "the property
owners were advised that, if we were unable to reach a mutual agreement, the matter would
be turned over to the city"
Those owners who sold were soon paid. Those who refused had their homes knocked down
anyway, and some received no money while they fought the city in the courts. Chudk and
Lurette Laue, for example, had to live apart in their daughters' homes.
After three years of legal wrangling, Hurst agreed to compensate the homeowners a total of
three million dollars plus legal fees - three times what the city originally set for their
properties.
Higher tax revenue is often the reason cities take a person's home, even when the ostensible
reason is cleaning up "blight." Brentwood, Mo., a surburb of St. Louis, is a case in point.
Brentwood's Rankin Avenue is a pleasant street, one block long, its tidy houses set back
from the curb on well-kept lawns. Broad trees shade the yards, where on a summer's day
children splash in wading pools. Nonetheless, according to a study prepared for the city by
Development Strategies, Inc., in July 199, Rankin Avenue was a part of a "blighted area."
There are no burned out crack houses or abandoned buildings on Rankin Avenue. But the
average house is 45 years old. Development Strategies's study promised that "clearance and
redevelopment of the area for a retail or office commercial use, or a higher-density residential
use, will generate far greater fiscal benefits to the city and other tax:ing authorities."
"It's just not right," says Grace Lutes, who lives in the neighborhood. "You pay taxes all your
life and now they tell us we don't give the city enough money."
Real-estate agents working for a developer made preliminary offers later that summer. "Right
from the beginning they were talking about eminent domain and how anyone who didn't sell
would have their house condemned," says Peter Pfeifer, a neighborhood resident.
The real-estate firm denies that its agents threatened the use of eminent domain. On the
other hand, they did tell homeowners that "the decision to use it is totally out of our hands,
and is a decision made by the city."
Pfeifer was so appalled by the situation that he ran for election to the Brentwood Board of
Aldermen. He won a seat, as did another man opposed to taking Rankin Avenue.
At their first board meeting, some 40 people from the neighborhood crowded in. Homeowner
Paul Casey made an impassioned plea. Citing Missouri law that says, in part, that a blighted
area is one that's "conducive to ill health, transmission of disease [and] crime," Casey asked,
"If we, are conducive to ill health, why isn t the Department of Health over there? If there is
crime, why aren't the police over there?"
With an organized citizenry and advocates on the Board of Aldermen, many Rankin Avenue
homeowners, have at least gotten better prices for their houses. The city has handed the
eminent domain power to the developer. He hasn't invoked it-not yet.
RICHARD EPSTEIN, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School and an expert in
eminent domain, says that developers ate rarely interested in land that is truly blighted. More
commonly they want to build in promising locations where property values are already
escalating. Condemnations, Epstein says, are often used "to make sure that the appreciation
in the value of the property goes to a politically favored developer and not to the actual owner."
Consider an episode in Jacksonville Beach, Fla. In 1998 retired school principal Julia
Brannam was approached by Tony Rukab, who offered $50,000 for a small lot, less than a
quarter of an acre, that her mother had left her. The lot was part of undeveloped acreage
facing J. Turner Butler Boulevard, a main road leading from the city toward the ocean.
Brannam would have been happy to sell to Rukab, who owned three lots himself and wanted
to build a small shopping strip. City planners told him they might approve a project there if the
developer bought and assembled a large property as a block.
Rukab tried to do this, putting together two acres by making handsome offers to Julia
Brannam and others, contingent on his getting approval from the city to build. He did not get
approval. The city stated that Rukab hadn't fulfilled its requirements, and by the time he
submitted his project, it was too late.
"The city had already committed itself to reaching an agreement with Sleiman Enterprises,"
says Steven Lindorff, director of Jacksoville Beach's development agency. Sleiman is a large
developer that has built several municipal projects.
Sleiman offered Julia Brannam $16,000 for her lot, a price that she found outrageous. "Tony
Rukal was ready and willing to pay me $50,000," she says.
Brannam refused to sell, as did several others. In February 1999 the city voted to seize the
land by eminent domain and transfer it to Sleiman. The city's appraiser valued Brannam's
property at $23,000.
The condemned land was designated a blighted area. But on one side of the acreage there
is a big new shopping center; on the other side a hotel is being built next to a swanky office
complex. And behind the condemned land there's the Marsh Landing development, where
some houses sell for millions.
Asked by Reader's Digest how the city could justify its $23,000 price-in light of Rukab's
$50,000 offer-Lindorff replied that "Rukab never closed on the offers he made." Transactions
"have to go to closing
Rukab and other lot owners have fought the city in court, so far without success. A judge ruled
that the ity had not acted "with illegality, bad faith or abuse of discretion."
GIDEON KANNER, professor emeritus at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, has long
decried the abuse of eminent domain by cities and others, including private developers who
are given this power. He also indicts those "judges, to their everlasting disgrace, who are
letting them get away with it."
One exception occurred recently in Saint Clair County, Illinois. Gateway International
Motorsports Corp. got the Southwestern Illinois Development Authority (SWIDA) to take land
belonging to Irving Pielet, in order to expand the parking lot at its popular stock-car racing
track. Pielet owns National City Environmental, a recycler that melts down the metal of
junkyard cars and home appliances. It's not a glamorous business. But it keeps 100,000
rusting heaps from going into landfills outside of Pielet's property every year, and employs
more than 80 people.
A trial judge approved the taking in April 1998. But a panel of three justices for Illinois's Fifth
District Appellate Court reversed his decision unanimously.
Despite the public benefits, including expansion of the tax base, the court ruled that "SWIDA
exceeded its constitutional authority." While the court noted that the term public use is
flexible, there had to be limits. "Eminent domain is an intrusive power," the court said, "and
the potential for its abuse is boundless."
How boundless? During the appellate court proceedings, one justice wondered aloud, "How
many people's property could you take before you say, Well, we created a land-grabbing
monster.?"
SWIDA's attorney, Harry Sterling, seemed unfazed. He replied, "The legislature, in an effort to
foster economic development, has permitted exactly that."
| Readers Digest A controversial government power called eminent domain may force you to. .. Kiss Your House Good-Bye by Eric Felten |
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