Eminent Domain the Old Fashioned Way

One neighborhood threatened by eminent domain has given in, not to the local government which was using its power to force the residents to sell, but to a developer who did it the old fashioned way, he paid for it.

Huge sums of money are being offered to citizens in the coastal town in Palm Beach County, with a sky's-the-limit mentality changing the minds of many prepared to go the distance in their battle to stay put.

Fox News recently broadcast an edition of "Hannity & Colmes" from Riviera Beach, with the theme "It Could Happen to You," referring to the city government's plan to seize the property of as many as 6,000 residents for a $2.4 billion waterfront-redevelopment program.

Martha Babson was among the critics in the television spotlight, but she is closing on a deal to sell her house tomorrow. She has been offered more than three times the appraised value of her $202,454 home by the son of Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga.

The flurry of sales is pleasing to city officials, who now won't need to use their powers of eminent domain to take the property and relocate the residents who sell.

"These people will go for the right price," Elizabeth Wade, chairman of the Riviera Beach City Council, told the Sun-Sentinel, noting the residents are simply finding the offers too lucrative to pass up.

"I would not call it vindication," she said. "I would call it a great gratification."

Although the issue of eminent domain is not settled, the people in this neighborhood have won. Their persistence paid off in that they have a value given their property that they can live with. They can let their property go with the satisfaction that they were not used.

The local government was trying to pick their pockets to benefit a commercial developer, by using a power granted to facilitate the construction of public use projects such as schools and roads. Lately localities have used this power to satisfy the politicians avarice by condemning residential neighborhoods for the development of private commercial development in hopes of greater tax revenues.

The issue still needs to be dealt with in a decisive manner by the legislature, but in this case it was settled the right way. When everyone can make a dollar, everyone will walk away happy. Governments tend to either give away the store or kill the golden goose when it comes to development because they don't understand this concept.

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