Eminent Domain in Reverse:

“Thruout the USA private developers have historically bought up undeveloped land and commenced to improve said land minimally with only roads or in some cases with their own privately built utilities on the site

and then expected the rest of us to provide the overall infrastructure roads, schools, water, sewer, etc. so they could reap exorbitant profits off their limited investments.

I for one feel such developers should finance the full costs of the public infrastructure for their developments.

Other examples of 'Eminent Domain in Reverse' involves folks who deliberately build homes and commercial properties in very hazardous places like hurricane prone coastlines, inland flood hazard areas, deep within fire prone forests, on hillsides with great slide potential, etc. and expect the taxpayer to bail them out when they experience catastrophic losses.

Then there are the island folk, who expect $20 million bridges to be built over to them for the conveneience of a few.

Some of these issues involve a tremendous expenditure of public funds for temporary fixes which might otherwise be spent on 'permaculture' (permanent-sustainable) projects.”

“The reasoning on the cities putting the infrastructure in is that they will be getting the taxes from the developed property. The downside of this is that cities lose money on residential developments. They make tax money off of the business districts.”

“Interesting points l.s. - I'd be interested in seeing which residential developments pay for themselves with property taxes and which don't.

I have been thinking that something short of "takings" might be useful as a development control: If the government would not insure, or pay for extension of services to places they didn't want developed... it would decrease development in those areas.”

“I should qualify my statement about residential that it applies to my area. My area is in the south and is suburban to Birmingham.”

“Sprawl is in most cases not cost effective and the developers milk the rest of us to ensure their profits.

That ain't free enterprise, it's a racket.”

“The exercise of Eminent Domain might be called taking for the public good.

Disaster relief might be called giving for the public good

but in the case of desirable recreational and environmental areas, when the private properties are wiped out by storms, floods, eathquakes, fires, etc. particularly along the coasts and in relatively wild woodland and mountain areas, why not pay (the properties were just wiped out, they can be bought cheap) those who have lost their properties to build elsewhere at some more appropriate location and take the property for public use and to offset future disaster relief at that same place.

The other aspect of this issue involves the improvement of roads into relatively wild areas. While local business people jump for joy at the prospect of all the new commercial and residential construction, I say the private areas of the region might well be substantially acquired on a willing seller-willing buyer for a fraction of the construction cost of the roads and so alleviate the need for said improved roads.

There is very little land left to be opened up. We no longer live on a frontier.

There is a case near here, at the lower end of the Linville Gorge where the north shore of Lake James owned by Duke Power remained almost completely undeveloped for 80 years with only a gravel road around the north of the lake. In its less than ultimate wisdom, NCDOT spent a massive sum to pave that road about 8 years ago, increased the value of the land many fold, developers sprung up offering large sums for lake front property and in a compromise the state of NC bought part of the land at these inflated prices, the USFS also bought part and the developers got much of the choice lake front.

My point is, a small fraction of the sum of money required to improve the road would have been more than enough to have bought the entire northern shore of Lake James, if done before the road was improved and the road could have been closed saving even more taxpayer money.

The funny part of this, knowing when the transaction was to occur of lands to the state and the USFS, I went to local Register of Deeds office to see the plats. The Registrar after retreiving the maps was fuming about all this land being removed from the tax base. When I pointed out that I was in favor of increased public lands, like a good politician, she smiled and promptly said she was for it also.
last edited: 7/04/05 6:01:46 PM”