Comments on: “Gideon’s Trumpet” reveals Clinton connection to New York redevelopment

By: Anonyms

Anonyms — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:56:11 +0000

Thanks Larry, you know I support your efforts at getting restrictions on the eminent domain takings.

As far as the Bella Terra story went all three tenants were able to stay. I don’t know what the ownership issues were but it worked out. Now if the economy improves maybe we can get the rest of the center developed. The changes they made were all good and the center is revitalized even if only half is completed.

By: Larry Gilbert

Larry Gilbert — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:26:47 +0000

anon.
Yes, there are legitimate uses for eminent domain “takings” of private property. In fact at last night’s Missson Viejo city council meeting there was discussion of an alternative solution to the 241 Toll road that would involve removal of 200 to 600 homes. Sad to report that this is an illustration of a valid use. A road, firehouse, school or police station, each of which are a recognized public use.
A few years ago I watched as the residents of Garden Grove addressed a major effort to take hundreds of their homes for a theme park along Harbor Blvd to compete with Disney. Steve Greenhut covered that effrot in the OC Register. The impacted owners were smart and made sure to fix their properties to remove any questionable challenges of Code violations. They painted the houses and mowed their lawns, etc. making it hard to declare the area as being “blighted.”
I believe the examply you reference is located within a redevelopment project area. The city can make improvements to the area by infrastructure improvements be it easing traffic flow or dressing up the aging public areas. Truthfully, it is in the best interest of the mall owners to make improvments just to retain their existing merchant’s customers. While we upgrade our homes the same investment is really in the best interest of the business community.
Look at the renovation of El Toro Road in Lake Forest where you can see a major change from the older shopping center. In their case the only use of eminent domain was to remove two gas stations to widen the road. They may have offered some low cost interest to the property owners as an inducement for that major renovation.
The core of the problem is defining what exactly is “blight,” which to date, is in the eyes of the beholder. We need to establish quantitative and qualitative data so that we are all on the same page. That data would include property vacancy factors, property taxes in arrears, high poverty rates, delinquent lease payments and high crime as benchmarked against other cities.

We tried to do this with SB 1206 a few years ago and met stiff resistence in the legislature. The result was a gutted Bill signed by governor Schwarzenegger.

By: Anonyms

Anonyms — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:00:22 +0000

Hard to tie in a quid pro quo on that one. I suspect that we will find this on a lot of green projects that don’t pass the sniff test.

I think we had something like this in our own backyard over at the old Huntington Center, now Bella Terra, where Wards, Mervyns, and Burlington Coat Factory had to fight eviction. I think during the dispute Wards went belly up and now Mervyns has done the same. Maybe another reader has better information on this.

While I support curbs on the abuse of imminent domain isn’t there a legitimate use of imminent domain? Can a property owner or tenant stand in the way of progress and cause an eyesore to persist because they fight every attempt at redevelopment? Or is there any legitimate use of imminent domain in your opinion Larry?