Eminent Domain: Supreme Court Ruled An Entire Neighborhood Of Homeowners Had No Legal Right To Their Property
An eminent domain ruling by the US Supreme Court, stripping New London, Connecticut homeowners of their property rights, has turned the Fort Trumbull neighborhood into a ghost town. In the Kelo v. City of New London case, the highest court in the land voted 5 to 4 to allow city officials to seize and demolish private property – and then turn the land over to real estate developers to build something “more lucrative.”
Fort Trumbull resident Susette Kelo, a nurse, loved her little cottage along the river and did not want to leave. Wilhelmina Dery, was born in the home on Walbach Street in 1918 and had lived there all her life until the US Supreme Court eminent domain ruling resulted in her evication. Pasquale and Margherita Cristofaro lived on Goshen Street, they were among the first New London residents to lose their home in the landmark eminent domain case. The same couple lost another home 30 years prior because the town wanted to build a new seawall – construction on the project never even began.
The homes of the Fort Trumbull opponents to the city’s seizure via eminent domain laws, as well as the property owned by neighbors, were reportedly targeted by Big Pharma giant Pfizer. The company was in the midst of building a massive research center nearby and was reportedly urging New London to clear a path for “world class redevelopment” which would allegedly appeal to scientists, business leaders, and other types of professionals. One Prizer representative had this to say as the eminent domain battle began nearly nine years ago, “Pfizer wants a nice place to operate. We don’t want to be surrounded by tenements.”
The New London residents from the Fort Trumbull neighborhood found the distortion of the public use mandate in the Fifth Amendment all the way to the US Supreme Court in an effort to keep their beloved homes. They unsuccessfully argued that city officials had no right to take their property by force and then transfer it to a private developer merely for the prospect of new jobs and higher tax revenues.
The Pfizer quality neighborhood dreams have never been realized. When Weekly Standard Charlotte Allen toured the Fort Trumbull area recently all that existed were 90 acres of empty and overgrown fields.
The Fifth Amendment’s eminent domain clause was written to allow property seizures only in cases where the property is “needed for public use,” such as widening a road or building a post office. The definition of eminent domain appears to have been stretched well beyond its intended meaning in the past several years. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, eminent domain has been used to take land for a bike path, because property owners rode ATVs to their unreachable by car property, in foreclosure cases to help the city recoup tax revenue, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy to spur new business. Even if a valid public use exists to seize a home, all other avenues should first be exhausted and the project truly a necessity. When you buy a home or piece of land, you apparently only own it until one government entity or another decides it is worthwhile to possess.
[Image Via: Wikimedia Commons]
