Today, the MN House passed a bill that makes it more difficult for government entities to acquire private property by strictly defining the situations in which eminent domain powers may be used. Although a bipartisan majority supported the bill, those who expressed concern that the bill goes too far were House reps from urban areas. The feeling is that it’s going to be hard for local governments to prove that a property is blighted and that cleaning up urban neighborhoods with environmental or crime problems will be virtually impossible.
I couldn’t find this blog’s prior stream of conversation on this issue. I recall that it was sparked last year by some big case.
The way I see it, this bill could result in more government corruption. If you’re a city council member, and some blighted (when speaking about eminent domain, this term is code for either ‘poor people with their family car jacked up on blocks in the front yard, or ‘old people who have been sitting in the same string of houses for 50+ years’) neighborhood is dragging down the tax base, you’re going to have to line up a developer in the shade with promises of increment financing, road construction, surrounding area improvement, etc. Most developers won’t take a leap to acquire blighted land unless they’re given some covert approval of preference beforehand.