Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Editorial: Eminent domain shouldn't be abused
Roanoke city government and Carilion worked together in an improper attempt to sway the redevelopment authority.
From the RoundTable blog
Read the latest entries
There is little doubt that Riverside Center -- housing the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute -- will benefit Roanoke more than the mostly decaying industries that occupied the location before.
That progress, though, has not come without issues. Owners of B&B Holdings, one of the few businesses that didn't accept buyouts from the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, has been fighting against efforts to acquire their three acres, leading to an effort to take the land using the controversial process of eminent domain.
B&B Holdings just lost a round in Roanoke Circuit Court, where Judge William Broadhurst validated the city's taking of the property.
Although he didn't side with B&B in his ruling -- which the owners vow to appeal -- Broadhurst revealed some of the background of this deal that should give Roanokers pause.
Broadhurst paints a clear picture of what happened: Carilion wanted the land. City Manager Darlene Burcham, just beginning her career in Roanoke, wanted the land improved. Those two facts drove the redevelopment authority in defining the South Jefferson Redevelopment Area.
As Broadhurst wrote, "B&B produced documentary evidence of correspondence ... suggesting that the city was pressuring RRHA to come up with findings that would correspond with the terms the city had reached with Carilion."
Broadhurst found that redevelopment authority officials "were able to insulate themselves from any improper effect of that conduct" in reaching their conclusions that the area was, indeed, blighted.
The judge correctly ruled that the proper finding of blight outweighed the behind-the-scenes maneuvering, but that "improper conduct" he noted remains a blight of its own on the city.
Eminent domain -- the right of the government to take an individual's property, albeit with the "just compensation" required by the Fifth Amendment -- is an awesome power.
The Fifth Amendment also requires that power be exercised only for "public use" -- a phrase that with the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous Kelo decision has come to mean almost any public gain, including the gain from the increased taxes that result from economic development.
But the power to take someone's property from them against their will should only be exercised when it is absolutely necessary and only for genuine public good.
The facts as presented in Broadhurst's ruling call into question the legitimacy of the process that led to this taking. It appears that a big business colluded with the city to get its hands on property outside of the private real estate market.
Riverside Center will undoubtedly become a valuable economic engine for the city. But the process that brought it about is nothing to instill pride.
