Quote:
Originally Posted by jimthemanincda
The case before the Supreme Court turned on whether "public purpose" satisfied the "public use" requirement of the 5th Amendment. In short, the majority of the court stated that the re-development plan in question served a public purpose, therefore it satisfied the public use requirement of the 5th Amendment (public use=public purpose). The majority argued that promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government while Justice O'Connor, in her dissent, argued that the line between private and public use of property had been blurred by the court and that the court significantly (and wrongly) expanded the meaning of public use.
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I agree with Justice O'Conner. What's to stop some government somewhere from deciding Wal-Mart is for public purpose? That's what I meant by Wal-Mart -- it's something any company like Wal-Mart, Toll Brothers, etc can exploit if they can find a city council dumb enough to think that a Wal-Mart store, or new housing development, etc, is more for "public purpose" than what's currently there. It creates a huge loophole and is very ambiguous, and when it comes to laws that have to do with real-estate, and peoples' lives to this degree, nothing should be ambiguous, and there shouldn't be any loopholes. I think people should push on their state governments to patch up these loopholes before we end up with a skyscraper in place of our city block and are forced to move when someone else is going to get rich off of the redevelopment. If it isn't blocked altogether, then FMV isn't good enough.