Most cities in urban areas strictly limit the number and types of animals you can own. You know what, I’ll take back the “strictly” adjective. How they enforce the laws generally depends on how well you get along with your neighbors. Most people, who might have one more dog or cat than allowed, or may have a ferret or chicken or pig, are violating some sort of ordinance — but nobody cares or reports it, so everything is fine … until you get that one neighbor who doesn’t like you and actually bothers to call the inspectors. This is occurring in St. Charles right now, with one family struggling to keep its family pig. The Post-Dispatch has the story here, but this question applies to every suburb and big city in Missouri. For pretty obvious reasons, this is not much of an issue in the rural parts of the state.

What limits should a city have on the type of pet you can own? In my opinion, this issue relates to property regulation or occupational licensing, in that it deserves a strict reading of the phrase “health, safety, and welfare” to justify government action. That pretty much takes care of the whole argument for me. The cities have a right to regulate poisonous snakes, large predators, or hordes of animals so large they clearly become a nuisance. I support laws against owning 12-foot pythons (which are normally owned by hard-drinking fraternity members — not a good combination). I support regulations of or bans on tigers, or wolf half-breeds, or scorpions, or 15 dogs at once. But that same interpretation would not ban a pot-bellied pig, or a few chickens, or two dogs and two cats in the same house.

I have said before that the best part of local government is watching dedicated citizens try to make their community a better place. The worst part is when citizens with little grounding in history, economics, or political theory try to solve every minor problem with a new law, as though the family with a pot-bellied pig were actually harming the rest of the neighborhood. Now, I realize that most of these types of animal regulations are actually very old, rather than a new, unconstitutional craze like red-light cameras. In days past, it might even have been necessary to enforce these laws strictly in order to differentiate between what was a farming area and what was not. But nowadays, these limits mostly just serve to increase the petty powers of government, and the annoying neighbors who enable them.

It has been a little more than two months since Pine Lawn Police Chief Rickey Collins began enforcing the anti-sagging ordinance that the municipality’s aldermen passed. According to the Post-Dispatch, “The ordinance calls for fines of up to $100 for those 17 and older who wear pants below the waist that expose underwear or skin. [...] Parents of those 16 and under face up to a $500 fine or 90 days in jail if they knowingly allow their children to wear pants in such a manner.”

Personally, I think sagging is uncongenial, representing the antithesis of a gentleman. Despite my views, I believe that government does not have the right to enforce family values by acting like the fashion police. Besides being difficult to implement and patrol, this policy is also unconstitutional. There are many forms of expression that are not protected by the First Amendment, such as fighting words, libel, commercial speech, and obscenity. While some try to place sagging under the umbrella of obscenity, it would be relevant to put it through the “Miller Test,” which is the standard for determining whether material is obscene. In the 1973 case of Miller v. California, the Supreme Court ruled that material is legally obscene if:

1. The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would conclude that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interests.
2. It depicts sexually explicit conduct, specifically defined by law, in a patently offensive manner.
3. It lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

I believe tha sagging passes the ‘Miller Test’ with flying colors. For young people who are part of our country’s inner-city hip hop culture, it is a form of rebellion and identity. To some, it is just plain fashionable. This ordinance in Pine Lawn is just another example of how our liberty and freedom of expression are in danger today.

Other cities around the country, most recently Flint, Mich., are also taking stride to incorporate the same ordinance in their efforts to restore family values and ethics. I do applaud the importance of ethics in American society, but how ethical is it for government to deny our freedom of expression?

My heart sank when I read this story from the Post-Dispatch today. A commercial developer has targeted a neighborhood in Affton for a new development and has started contacting the area’s property owners with offers. The area’s elected representative on the County Council is already talking about creating a TIF district to subsidize the developer’s efforts. Of course, creating a TIF district also opens the door to eminent domain. This is a textbook example of how eminent domain abuse begins, all over the country.

My advice to the good folks in Affton (and anywhere else where a developer is looking to assemble property) is to immediately read the Eminent Domain Survival Guide offered by the Institute for Justice. It offers invaluable information for those who find themselves in a situation where the government might take away their property. Second, I urge you to contact Anthony Martin, Missouri’s Property Rights Ombudsman. His job is to help Missourians understand the way that eminent domain is pursued in this state. And, finally, contact us at the Show-Me Institute so we can help tell your story and, hopefully, help save your home or business.

A few weeks ago, I pointed out that cities across the state were creating a war chest to try to prevent Missouri’s voters from ending the eminent domain abuse that currently threatens our right to keep what rightfully belongs to us. Shortly thereafter, the secretary of state ruled that, despite the hundreds of thousands of signatures turned in by Missouri Citizens for Property Rights (MO-CPR) in support of their proposed constitutional amendments, the issue would not be on the November ballot.

Last week, MO-CPR filed a lawsuit challenging the secretary of state’s decision and asking the court to allow citizens to have their say on the issue. And, yesterday, the Missouri Municipal League — an organization that collects taxpayer dollars and purports to advance the interests of Missouri’s local governments — moved to block MO-CPR’s lawsuit.

A few choice tidbits from the Municipal League’s filing should allow citizens to evaluate the merits of its “concerns”:

• The league’s members argue that they should be allowed to intervene because they “have exercised the power of eminent domain for the purpose of acquiring private property for conveyance to private entities for commercial or other development to fight blight and other decay, and it is anticipated that they will continue to do so in the future.”
• The league opposes the amendments because they might require local governments to pay “just compensation for local land use regulations.” In other words, the cities would have to pay you if they passed a regulation that decreased the value of your property. While not included in their filing, a previous Municipal League analysis of the proposed amendments also worried that they would “significantly increase the amounts of condemnation awards” to citizens being dispossessed of their homes and businesses.
• The league is concerned that the amendments would require cities to get a court order before they destroyed or condemned property that they thought was a nuisance. While not mentioned in the league’s filing, the amendment would also require cities to give owners an opportunity to fix the problems themselves. I mean, why in the world should cities allow property owners the chance to remove the government’s pretext for giving their property to someone else? Honestly.
• The league doesn’t like that the amendments would “limit the use of eminent domain to the State or political subdivisions whose officials are directly responsible to elected officials.” This would, of course, allow voters to hold those responsible for using eminent domain accountable for their actions — a radical departure from current law, which allows many unelected, unaccountable organizations to take away private property.
• Despite justifying its involvement in part by complaining that confirming the number of proper signatures will be expensive, the league calls for the court to recount all 400,000+ signatures, not just the ones challenged by MO-CPR.

MO-CPR issued a press release in response to the Municipal League’s filing. Among the excellent points made in the release, my favorite is where Bevis Shock (a member of the Show-Me Institute’s board of directors) asks, “I wonder if the politicians who approved this legal action have considered how many residents of their cities signed our petition?”

We are a little late putting this up, but you can listen in to the second half of our appearance on the Gary Nolan Show in Columbia on August 6. They only have the second hour up online, which featured Dave Roland talking about property rights and then a round robin with all three of us to close it out. I can’t think of a more productive way to spend an hour while you watch the Olympics tonight than to listen to it!

Congrats to Gary on his marriage; we thank him again for inviting us to appear while he was on vacation.

The Springfield News-Leader ran an op-ed this week written by one of the aldermen for the city of Ozark, in which he attempted to characterize (or, perhaps, caricature) those individuals and groups who are demanding an end to eminent domain abuse as radical activists “promoting their own personal agendas hoping to cost taxpayers thousands.”

Reading the comments at the bottom of the page has been the highlight of my day.

As noted in an earlier post by David Stokes, Bradley Ferguson just can’t seem to catch a break these days. His latest, and presumably one of his last, attempts to develop his property into a residential development on the outskirts of Washington, Mo., was recently rebuffed by a judge. Apparently, by not granting a writ of mandamus, the county is not forced to place the village law issue on the ballot.

As a lifelong resident of Washington, I have taken particular interest in the unspooling of this whole ordeal. Long before anyone even knew about the village law, this issue was hotly debated in Washington. Although I live across town from the property in question, I have spent a considerable amount of time near the proposed development (family-owned property) — at least enough to offer some insight, hopefully.

In a general sense, I am in the camp that landowners should be able to do with their land as they please — with some exceptions. I do believe that there should be some “soft” planning and zoning laws on the books, to ensure that surrounding landowners are not adversely affected by the actions of their neighbor. For this reason, I am opposed to the village law as a way to completely get around the system and do with your land as you wish. However, I do think that — as a happy medium — some planning and zoning laws do need to be toned down a bit, and not represent the be-all-end-all of property usage. To me, it appears that the village law was a potentially dangerous and extreme way to make a compromise between land owners and planning and zoning commissions.

To illustrate my point above, I believe that a perfect example can be found in Mr. Ferguson’s hard-fought battle to develop a subdivision, against the wishes of the planning and zoning commission. The commission cited traffic safety as a major reason for not allowing the proposed development. Whether or not this concern was legitimate doesn’t really matter here — the subdivision request was denied.

Under the soon-to-expire village law, one form of recourse would be to petition to incorporate the land as a village, and build the subdivision anyway. This may seem like a good alternative, but the village law could also produce very bad results. For example, if someone wanted to building a shooting range in their backyard, in the middle of a subdivision, they could declare their property a village, vote on it, accept it, and build a shooting range. Although the neighbors could try to protect their safety by taking the matter to court after the fact, that course of action isn’t particularly comforting if a bunch of gun-wielding four-year olds are running around the neighborhood in the meantime.

Planning and zoning laws exist for a good reason. These laws are in place to ensure that complete chaos does not erupt. Are some of these laws arbitrary and overbearing? Sure, but that doesn’t mean that we would be better-served by a free-for-all, where people exercise their Second Amendment rights in the stomping grounds of suburbia.

Brad Ferguson’s attempts to develop a subdivision in Franklin County have been dealt another setback (note clever use of planning and zoning term) by the court. According to the Washington Missourian, the Judge denied a writ of mandamus (I’m not a lawyer, so no idea what that means …) and the case was continued until August 22. Because the repeal of the Village Law is effective August 28, the 22nd will likely be the last attempt under the current law allowing greater ease of incorporation. It clearly appears that these attempts to incorporate are going to fail.

My colleague Dave Roland argued a short time ago that Mr. Ferguson should be allowed to develop his property however he sees fit, and the issues that might arise out of that could be dealt with later. I believe that the people of Franklin County have chosen, in a democratic fashion, to enact a planning and zoning system, and there is nothing wrong with requiring developers to go through that process, even if the process might go to far (if it does, that is a legitimate thing for the courts to decide).

There are clearly reasons why the commission has decided that this development is not right for Franklin County. These reasons likely come down to the effects and costs it will have on people outside of the immediate development area. If the people in Franklin County want to change this, they can elect people who want to get rid of planning and zoning entirely. (Charges that this is some kind of Potemkin Court, and that the good ol’ boys network is out to get someone, are going to be ignored here.)

At a previous eminent domain forum — the arguments from which apply just as well here — a supporter of eminent domain made an absurd statement and left himself open to withering counterattack when he said we need things like eminent domain for private purposes because he “believed in order.” (A very close paraphrase.) Well, his opponent retorted that he believed in freedom, including the freedom not to sell your property if you don’t want to. Well, I have no such concern with order when it comes to issues of property development — and I believe in freedom, too. But I also have a respect for democracy. If the people of Franklin County have chosen a system of planning, residents should either work within the system or work to change the system. The obvious counterargument to this would ask: What if democracy violates a fundamental right, like Jim Crow laws that prevented African-Americans from voting? Of course, there are issues like this that you should never leave to majority rule — but, without going any further, I don’t think zoning rises to that level at all.

As a link from this website has previously shown, Missouri Citizens for Property Rights gathered more than 400,000 signatures in its effort to give Missourians the opportunity to end eminent domain abuse this November by passing two proposed amendments.

Concerned that the amendments’ adoption would cut off their ability to give away their citizens’ homes and businesses to commercial developers, some cities are now setting aside taxpayer dollars to try to prevent the vote from happening. This is every bit as outrageous as school districts gambling millions of dollars in taxpayer funds in an effort to get billions of dollars in taxpayer funds. You should consider doing a little research to find out whether your local officials are using your money against you in a similar way.

The Springfield News-Leader has a great article (link via Combest) about what happened in the one county that allowed people to go ahead and form their own villages under the now-thankfully-repealed Village Law. Camden County, along the Lake of the Ozarks, had three microvillages incorporate, and more applications coming in, when they established a moratorium — and then the state law was repealed. Here’s how government works in a village of two:

“I had to second the nomination,” Dave Krehbiel said, laughing. “My wife accepted the appointment of clerk.”

“He’s had way too much fun with this,” Dana Krehbiel said.

And it is going to cost other people money (emphasis added):

He may even develop it someday and is considering passing some new ordinances, like mandating utility companies bury the telephone and power lines that run across his lawn, somewhat blocking his otherwise stunning view of the lake.

Moving utility poles and wires is expensive. Other people are going to pay for that in their bills. What if you had hundreds more villages like this, some forcing buried lines and others mandating above ground lines? This is supposed to be a show of individual liberty?

The older system worked fine for people willing to pay the costs of their proposals and plans, rather than those who intend — like some wannabe developers — to move forward in developing property for homes, leaving the infrastructure costs to others:

The Christian County commission (in 2002) gave developer Clyde Lorance clearance to develop the land after he offered to pay for the water, sewer and road systems. He even built Spokane-Highlandville Fire Protection District a station, giving his village full fire service.

So that is all you had to do before the Village Law, and all you need do again now that the law has been repealed. This is not trampling on anyone’s rights. Missouri does not need more government, particularly of the Liliputian variety.

This is a "Read it all and make up your own mind"-type post. The Show-Me Institute’s Dave Roland just wrote a new op-ed about the issue of zoning and property rights in Missouri. To put the op-ed into today’s context, here are two ongoing major zoning disputes in Missouri, neither of them related to the "Village Law." In Kansas City, the Star is reporting on a dispute involving the proposed expansion of a prominent museum. Just north of there in Platte County, the St. Joseph News-Press reports on a subdivision dispute — the kind typical in many fast-growing areas. (Or, at least, areas that were fast-growing before $4-a-gallon gas, but that’s another issue.)

Not to put words in his mouth, but Dave Roland would say that both the museum and the subdivision developers have the right to develop their property however they want to, and no city or planning commission or neighbor has the right to prevent that. Subsequently, if those developments harmed the neighbors’ property values, the neighbors should be compensated for that harm via civil action. I encourage you to read it all (particularly the op-ed), and come to your own decision.

On June 23, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a devastating blow to our Constitution, ruling in a 5-4 decision that Americans only have a right to keep their homes, businesses, and houses of worship until their government decides a new owner would generate more tax revenue.  As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor pointed out in her dissent, the majority’s ruling in Kelo v. New London means that "[t]he specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

The public’s reaction to the Kelo decision was immediate and impassioned, making the case one of the most reviled Supreme Court opinions in recent history. Citizens throughout the nation demanded that their state governments act to make sure their property rights were secure. As a result, 42 states passed at least one bill in response to Kelo, although some bills (such as the eminent domain "reform" passed in Missouri) were far less effective than others.

Regrettably, the Supreme Court marked this anniversary by announcing today that it will not consider a case that might have given them the chance to scale back some of the damage done by Kelo. Suzette Kelo, on the other hand, is helping to spearhead the continuing effort to see property rights protected in this country, and she was present for the grand reopening of the little pink house that was at the center of the controversy. It has been relocated to another part of the city, where it will stand as a monument to the struggle that she and her neighbors shared with hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens who are threatened with eminent domain. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, three years after New London won its case by persuading five justices that the displacement of these tax-paying property owners was necessary to complete the city’s revitalization, the "redevelopment site" remains a wasteland.

Today’s Springfield News-Leader has an article by columnist Sarah Overstreet that highlights an ongoing battle about city codes between Springfield and an area business owner. Tom Ray put up a fence around his property after leasing the space from businessman Jim Morris, and this has caused quite an uproar. By putting up this fence — on his property, mind you — he apparently has turned everyone in Springfield against him. See, Ray has the unfortunate circumstance of being located in the same shopping complex as a favorite local restaurant, The Pizza House, and apparently customers don’t like to see a fence when they are eating their pizza. The article points out that customers "found it forbidding, ruining the friendly feeling they’d grown accustomed to," and notes that the parking lot is now shorted a few extra spaces because of the fence. The article also recognizes, though, that those missing sparking spaces belonged to Morris, and were not intended for the use of visitors to nearby establishments.

City officials investigated and initially found that Morris and Ray were within their legal rights to build the fence. However, after public outcry following an earlier column, city officials investigated the matter again and this time found several obscure ordinances forbidding the fence. I’d argue that these ordinances tend to trample property rights and hinder personal freedom, and it would be nice if city officials seemed more concerned about these business owners’ property rights rather than appeasing the adjacent owners who find the fence "forbidding."

After his second review, the Springfield code administrator declared the fence a public nuisance. The article summarizes one of his findings this way: "the structure is built or used in violation of the building, plumbing, electrical, fuel gas or zoning ordinances of the city."

I am struggling to understand how a fence on one’s own personal property can be declared a public nuisance. Is it because it doesn’t allow for visitors to nearby businesses to park on Morris’ property anymore? Or is it because nearby business owners don’t want to look at a fence that they think is "forbidding"? It could be mere resistance to a change in the status quo. None of these reasons, though, are viable enough to deem a fence a "public nuisance" when it does nothing but protect property. As landlord, ideally Morris should be able to do whatever he pleases with his property, as long it does not affect the safety or rights of other individuals. But city officials also rattled off several other ordinances (found in the article) that state Mr. Morris is in clear violation of city codes.

I understand that some regulations are needed to prevent total chaos (I tend to side with David Stokes and Justin Hauke on the "Village Law" debate), but something as simple as adding a fence to a piece of property should not be in the control of city officials — really, they should have bigger issues to worry about. Alas, the government never ceases to amaze me. Classifying a fence on private property as a "public nuisance" is something I cannot fathom.

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of a public nuisance is, "something that
unreasonably interferes with the health, safety, comfort, morals, or
convenience of the community and that is treated as a criminal violation". Clearly, building a fence on your own property does need meet any of the criteria here needed to classify it as a public nuisance. The only term that the city might successfully argue is "comfort." This is an ambiguous and subjective term, though — almost any action can interfere with the comfort of some individual.

Instead, the city’s rationale for its second judgment should have been "making your neighbors mad, because they don’t like your taste."

Dave reported that the Missouri Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of property owners regarding the misuse of eminent domain. In addition to setting a much needed precedent, this ruling will have important economic consequences. Specifically, it promotes a slightly more equitable and efficient compensation procedure that, in turn, creates new disincentives for some unnecessary designations of blight.

Clearly, this ruling defends blight victims’ rights to just compensation. The owners of blighted properties are now armed to potentially claim
damages caused over time by the negative designation on their homes and
businesses. We can easily sympathize with businesses and homeowners who suffer for years from decreased revenues and property values because of the uncertainties inherent in owning "blight." Hopefully, deserving home and business owners will follow the Gladstone
Plaza Shopping Center’s lead by keeping the thorough financial records necessary to sue for damages. Although the court’s decision will by no means deliver fully the promises of the Fifth Amendment, it is a step in the right direction for a select group of property owners.

I contend that a move toward compensation at market value will permit greater economic efficiency as well. Simply put, if a development will be more beneficial to society than the current inhabitants of a parcel of land, its investors should be able to buy out this inferior market competition. Half-baked arguments about positive externalities and the failure of markets to deliver public goods should not suffice to construct legal barriers for a class of private conflicts that can usually be resolved by supply and demand. Even if the unavoidable difficulty of providing for public goods can theoretically be used as a justification for eminent domain, Missouri authorities have surely crossed the line from beneficial to harmful.

For the most part, current legal hurdles exist solely to favor developers (socially beneficial and otherwise) by allowing them to force away competition for property at inefficiently low prices. If those prices become less hampered by interference, society will better allocate its scarce resources into the most efficient avenues (see the Coase Theorem). Nonetheless, there are certainly cases in which eminent domain can be used for greater social efficiency, regardless of its moral ramifications. Because of these exceptions, I cannot provide a wholesale endorsement of the due criticism leveled at eminent domain abuses based solely on economic efficiency grounds. Even so, marginal decreases in the use of eminent domain would undoubtedly benefit society economically. A move toward market forces, then, is not only ethically right but economically sound. In a limited capacity, the recent court ruling represents such a move.

Additionally, this decision will cause some developers to think twice before seeking government assistance in dealing with resistant property owners. Faced with the threat of lawsuits, those developers who don’t intend to proceed quickly with their projects will be less willing to stake claims on other people’s property. Unfortunately, this specific case in Gladstone offers little promise to owners of property that is condemned so quickly that its initial blight designation causes no quantifiable harm. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has offered a partial solution to one group of victims — individuals whose possessions hang in the uncertain limbo of pre-condemnation blight. This empowerment should at least deter future encroachments on property rights that won’t produce results within a somewhat reasonable time frame.

The recent court ruling is by no means a sufficient fix to Missouri’s struggle with eminent domain abuse. Because of its limited applicability, the decision will probably only benefit a handful of vigilant property owners. Nevertheless, those individuals will receive unprecedented relief that may establish a positive trend.

Yesterday the Missouri Supreme Court issued an opinion that offers a glimmer of hope for the thousands of property owners across the state whose properties have been labeled "blighted" by local authorities.  The unanimous decision held that property owners have a right, under both the state and federal constitutions, to recover damages resulting from blight designations placed on their homes and businesses, even if the authorities have not proceeded with the condemnation. The court did say that it would be difficult for the owners to prove that the damages were the result of the blight designation, because it will (incorrectly) presume that cities only place blight designations on areas that are already in decline, but held that where a property owner can demonstrate that economic losses have resulted from the city’s action, both constitutions demand that property owners be compensated.

This decision is a welcome development. As we have noted before, Missouri has become the worst state in the nation in terms of abusing eminent domain, and thousands of property owners have suffered immensely because one government agency or another determined that their home or business was in a "blighted" area. Previously, the Missouri Supreme Court had suggested that those affected had no hope of recovering their losses unless the General Assembly passed laws requiring cities to compensate those whose property values were damaged by a blight designation, so it is extremely heartening to see that, when directly faced with the question, the Court recognized the constitutional imperative that cities must put property owners "in as good a position" as if the blight designation had never happened.

I regard this case as a strong step in a positive direction for folks in this state, as well as a sign that the Missouri Supreme Court may be warming up to the protection of citizens’ property rights, despite their decision earlier this year in the Tourkakis case.

Tomorrow morning, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in a rather unusual case. Jim Roos graduated from Concordia Seminary in 1970 and eventually founded Sanctuary in the Ordinary, a unique sort of ministry that provides ultra-low-income housing for those who would otherwise have nowhere to go, and tries to teach tenants some of the basics about living as part of a neighborhood. Roos renovated a number of properties in the McRee Town neighborhood, which later came to be targeted for redevelopment by the city of St. Louis. When it became clear that the city intended to use eminent domain to tear down the buildings that Roos’ ministry was trying to use for good, he painted a huge sign on one of them calling for an end to eminent domain abuse.

As it turns out, the city — and especially the Land Clearance Redevelopment Authority (LCRA) — didn’t much care for the criticism. The government cited Roos for illegally displaying a sign without a permit. Even though his right to free speech means that the city had no proper authority to require Roos to seek their permission to express his opinion about eminent domain, Roos complied with the city’s directive and applied for a permit. The LCRA persuaded the city’s Building and Inspection (B&I) Division to deny the permit, because Roos had not first gotten the LCRA’s permission to file the application. When Roos then sought the LCRA’s permission to pursue a sign permit, the LCRA denied his request. With the help of the Institute for Justice, Roos sued to enforce his constitutional rights to free speech.

When the city saw that the lawsuit sought to hold the LCRA accountable for its role in denying Roos’ constitutional freedoms, officials argued that the court should not hold the LCRA accountable because it had no authority to deny the permit in the first place. In other words, the city argued (and, remarkably, the trial court agreed!) that Roos was not entitled to a judgment that the LCRA had acted unlawfully because … well … the LCRA had acted unlawfully.

It is important for all of us that the Eighth Circuit reverses the lower court’s decision. If judges refuse to punish (or even recognize) constitutional violations resulting from improper assertions of governmental authority, agencies such as the LCRA will be able to continue intimidating people without fear of reprisal. These agencies already bully too many people just by using the powers already given them under the law — they surely should not be allowed to get away with making up new rules in order to exercise even more control over our lives.

The points that Justin has made about how zoning laws create a certain security for property owners and their mortgage companies are valid, but he misses the point in a way similar to Mr. Stokes’ earlier argument: That security comes at a price much steeper than is commonly realized.

A free society is, almost by definition, unpredictable. Where people have an abundance of liberty, you can never be certain how changes and innovation will render investments (whether in property, education, or profession) of little value. That unpredictability is extremely uncomfortable for people who have committed enormous resources to any particular endeavor (like, say, investing in airlines or high-risk mortgages), and they will want to do everything possible to protect their investments. All too frequently — and, admittedly, motivated by what they believe to be the best of intentions — these people ask the government to secure their investments by passing legislation that will presumably prevent (or remedy) changes in the market that will disadvantageously affect their interests. Every time the government acquiesces, it does so to the detriment of someone else’s liberty.

David should be well-acquainted with the aftermath of such legislation, because he is currently working on a project involving occupational
licensing. Licensing schemes arise for almost precisely the same
reasons as zoning laws — their proponents are merely trying to secure
their investment in their business or profession. After all, where a
cosmetologist has dedicated thousands of dollars to earning a degree
from an approved school, why should their earning potential be
challenged by "unschooled" competitors offering services for far lower
rates? Or why should extra competition be allowed in taxi markets
where there are already "plenty" of cabs and new drivers might drive down
fares? Or why should a family that has operated a small community store
for decades be forced to compete against a Wal-Mart or Target? Thus,
motivated by concern for the established interests, lawmakers dictate
that only cosmetologists with a ridiculous amount of schooling have any
right to practice that profession, and only cab drivers who can
demonstrate the "necessity" of their services have any right to enter
that market, and that in some areas no big box retailers will be allowed to compete with the local mom-and-pop establishments.

The thing is, the free market’s unpredictability and flexibility work in favor of a lot of people, and in favor of the system as a whole. Regulation and red tape tends to hamper economic growth. Deregulation, on the other hand, allows innovation and rapid economic expansion. Liberty allows entrepreneurs to adapt to changing conditions, meaning that if an enterprising property owner sees a market for a Star Wars memorial, they can build one and thus take advantage of the combination of their property and their ingenuity. If the neighbors don’t like the idea of living near this sort of attraction, they are not bound to suffer because they have a multitude of options. Not only could they try to recover money damages for any harm done to their ability to peacefully enjoy their property, they might discover opportunity of their own by capitalizing on the market for a community composed of Star Wars aficionados. Admittedly, a disavowal of obtrusive regulation might result in some of the inconveniences that Justin mentioned, but even if one discounts the intrinsic value of freedom, a commitment to liberty is likely to be more beneficial to all concerned in the long-run.

Another issue that Justin overlooked is that the simple act of imposing zoning laws itself devalues property, owing to the owners’ loss of ability to develop it as they choose — a fact that was long ago recognized in Missouri’s courts. Initially, of course, the Missouri Supreme Court refused to allow any zoning law that was not designed to protect the health and safety of the community, but even when they departed from that strict stance, the court would only permit the imposition of zoning ordinances if the affected citizens were paid compensation for the loss of their right to use the property. A few years later, the court took leave of its prior wisdom, allowing government to act with impunity in placing value-reducing restrictions on individuals’ use of their properties. Thus, the use of zoning laws is something of a counterproductive solution for those worried about how their neighbors’ actions might adversely affect their property values.

Properly understood, the government absolutely has the authority to see that citizens are held accountable for abuses of their liberty and that victims of nuisance are compensated for harms wrongfully suffered. But it cannot properly be the government’s responsibility to secure the investments of some at the expense of the liberty of others. In the end, these protectionist laws result in the injustice of the government picking winners and losers. The winners are those whose interests are protected; the losers are those whose liberty is unwillingly stripped from them. I understand Justin’s concern that an immediate return to strict
protection of property rights could prove more chaotic than many would
like to see, but similar arguments have been used in other contexts to
postpone enforcement of constitutional freedoms. I, for one, do not believe we should delay the realization of liberty because of potentially unfounded fears of destabilization.

As David Stokes and I have previously discussed, I do, of course, agree that legislation should be the result of public debate and that legislators should have very clear ideas of what, precisely, for which they are voting. I would be thrilled if the legislature would discipline itself to avoid the silly game-playing that has taken the place of high-minded political debate. So our thoughts are perfectly in accord on that point.

This being the case, I believe our disagreement rests squarely on certain conflicting notions of the proper scope of political power and the value of individual liberty.

It seems to me that the gist of David’s recent post was that the "liberty" the Founders spoke of and wrote into the Constitution is not especially broad in scope. In his formulation, constitutional protections of "liberty" should be sufficient to require that property owners cannot be denied the opportunity to make simple modifications to their properties, like fencing or (presumably)
"reasonable" additions to a house, and the Constitution would prevent governments from curtailing one’s eccentric tastes in decoration. But if a citizen wants to use their property in a way that could arguably impose a
significant inconvenience on their neighbors, whether by increasing traffic,
noise, or offensive smells, Stokes’ argument suggests that part of the population would be entitled to utilize the power of government to forbid
the undesired use. In other words, "liberty," in its constitutional sense, is not really infringed when the government applies force against some of its citizens in order to protect other citizens from inconvenience or annoyance. Another way of stating this proposition is that some liberties don’t really merit protection and, therefore, exist solely at the tolerance of the majority. Even more succinctly, one person’s freedoms end where they create a critical mass of irritation among their neighbors.

While I am open to hearing a principled argument that would establish where the constitutional line of demarcation should be drawn on the spectrum of irritation between "Ugh, my neighbor’s yard is loaded with plastic pink flamingos" and "Whooo-eeee, my neighbor’s hog farm sure do kick up a stink," I do think that it would be difficult to make. If one concedes that some level of irritation (short of empirically demonstrable harm) is sufficient to justify legislative restriction of liberty, then the only question left is who gets to decide where the line will be drawn. As David pointed out, that will usually be the majority, and the majority can — and will — re-draw that line as it suits their interests, regardless of the cost to the liberty of those not in the mainstream.

I know Mr. Stokes too well to simply lump him in with the petty tyrants for whom I have such great distaste, but the position he took in his post does put him in some unsavory company. Those with conventional, mainstream sensibilities have always loved the idea that they might somehow force those around them to conform to their standards — all-too-frequently by drawing the aforementioned line of demarcation in a fashion very restrictive of liberty. This crew does not always utilize the power of government — after all, there are plenty of neighborhood associations working to police homeowners’ aesthetic standards — but zoning laws have long since become the favorite tool to dictate how citizens may be allowed to use what belongs to them. This is mostly because (as Mr. Stokes implied) the desired results are both easier to achieve and more certain when obtained by persuading local politicians to pass restrictive laws, rather than seeking remedy in the courts.

Those who pursue governmentally-enforced restrictions on property rights always argue (as, indeed, they must) that "[t]he fundamental rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
do not and ha[ve] never entailed the idea that anyone can form their own
city, state, or country if they don’t like the democratic decisions of
the majority of Americans." Mr. Stokes added, "I believe we actually fought a war about this issue." These are statements that deserve a thorough response.

Stokes is right insofar as we did fight a war about whether people have an inherent right to reject a government that denies their freedoms — it was called the American Revolution. When Jefferson wrote about the unalienable rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," he stated that "whenever any Form of Government becomes  destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it" (emphasis added). The Revolution was fought to secure our natural right to liberty, not so that the tyranny of the British Monarchy could be replaced by a tyranny of elected representatives.

It is vital to point out that a great many of the American colonies (Plymouth, Maryland, Rhode Island, etc.) and also several American states (Texas, West Virginia, Utah, among others) were founded precisely because a group of people was unwilling to live under the laws established by the majority to which they were formerly subject. The founding generation clearly would have approved of these acts, as it produced numerous works expressing concern that the people must be protected against what Alexis de Tocqueville called the "tyranny of the majority." James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," thoroughly acknowledged this problem in Federalist 10, citing worries that "measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." The American people demanded the creation of a Bill of Rights because they recognized the danger that even citizens of a democratic republic might one day produce laws that would violate individual freedoms, and they wisely intended to prevent future majorities from succeeding in that regard.

Even on a local level, the proper authority of government has not always been understood to allow majorities to dictate extensive limitations on liberty. Before the Missouri Supreme Court swayed from its original interpretation of the state Constitution, it did, in fact, hold that communities were and ought to be powerless to deny individuals the right to use their property as they saw fit, so long as the selected use did not threaten the health, safety, or welfare of the community. The court repeatedly stuck down local efforts to restrict citizens’ use of their property, arguing in State ex rel. Rosenblatt v. Sargent (1882) that a government that holds the property of its citizens subject to the unlimited control of "even the most democratic depository of power" would still be a despotism. That meant that cities were not permitted to limit the height, location, or use of buildings on their property unless the government demonstrated a threat to the neighborhood’s health or safety that would otherwise result. Only when the government had made such a demonstration — and, importantly, this did not include hypothetical or merely potential threats — would the courts permit cities to restrict their citizens’ liberties and property rights.

The final point I’ll make here has to do with David’s concern that applying the Constitution properly would require some to "go up against [some powerful business'] law firm to try to get some money from them." I’ll admit that it is terribly frustrating for people to have to go to litigation to seek redress of harms that they have suffered, but do we really want to sacrifice individual liberty for the sake of convenience? The American founders certainly didn’t think so, and neither did the Missouri Supreme Court until the late 1920s. Our legal system, while definitely imperfect, is a far better surety for freedom and justice than the capricious whims of those eager to force their neighbors to conform to their own ideas of what is proper and acceptable.

It was not long ago that when business owners heard about new development in their area, they greeted it with glee. Thanks to the abuse of eminent domain in Missouri, and the authority of local governments to decide that some types of businesses are better than others, that is not always the case any more. Today’s Post-Dispatch has an article about the public previews of the proposed bridge over the Mississippi. Check out this unfortunately valid concern from a nearby businessman (emphasis added):

Kevin Minden studied a map of the future Mississippi River bridge, looking for clues as to how it might affect his engine rebuilding shop.

One of the connector ramps will run a few blocks from his building, which has him concerned that the bridge might lead to a development boom. Minden fears losing his land to a developer.

"Everything in that area is old," Minden said. "What are they wanting people to see when they drive across?"

He fears a development boom! He should be praying for one to increase the value of his business; I hope his fears prove false, but they are certainly valid. There are numerous examples of these types of eminent domain takings throughout our state. Our former editor, Tim Lee, wrote the defining study about the abuse of eminent domain in Missouri, and I encourage you all to check it out if you have not already. Hopefully, Missouri will return to property laws that don’t make property owners fear improvements.

My esteemed colleague, Mr. Stokes, has repeatedly written about the much-reviled "village law" that caused such a ruckus in this past legislative session. I think his hostility is unwarranted.

The law, which was passed in 2007, allows small groups of property owners — potentially even just one property owner — to establish their own autonomous political units that would not be bound by many county regulations. Essentially, they would be free to develop their property as they chose, without having to deal with the red tape and over-regulation that is so prevalent in many localities. At its heart, this statute is friendly to property rights and liberty.

So, what about this law got people so angry? Politics. The way the bill was passed (it slipped through, virtually unnoticed at the end of the 2007 session) and the fact that a commercial developer filed a petition for a new 400-acre village the day the bill became law raised speculation that the law was intended to pay off supporters of the politicians who sneaked it into law. On top of the visceral reaction against any sort of special favors or corruption, counties realized that villages formed under the new law would be exempt from their attempts to exercise control over the residents’ property. County officials considered it a catastrophe that citizens might "preempt [their] local authority[.]"

But really, why is it a bad thing that small groups of citizens should be allowed to control their own properties? Bradley Ferguson, an individual developer seeking to incorporate his 40 acres as a village, is only doing so because the city of Washington has refused to annex him, and the county government will not grant him permission to build a subdivision on his land. I see it as a good thing that the current village law would let him seek out his own prosperity without having to live by someone else’s leave.

To be sure, there are some legitimate concerns about what would happen without zoning and other land use restrictions. After all, what if your neighbor suddenly decided to build a hog farm right next to your property? But the law has always had a remedy for this kind of thing! Where neighbors’ use of their property substantially impairs your ability to peacefully enjoy your own property (because of noise, odors, etc.), you may be able to sue them to receive compensation for their offense. The law of nuisance works to ensure that individuals retain their right to use their properties as they see fit, while also allowing anyone injured by that use to hold them accountable — all of which is a far better solution than granting government officials the authority to dictate how people will be able to live.

So, in short, I’m sorry to see the village law revert to a more conventional form. I think that concerns about the proliferation of local governments were ill-founded and, at any rate, that these localities would not likely have been worse than the sort of petty tyranny already on display at the county level. But, then again, maybe I’m just a village idiot.

This could not have worked out better, frankly. The harmful "Village Law" that was passed last year was properly repealed in the session that just finished on Friday. The Springfield News-Leader had the story; it has covered this issue closely all year. The good news is that the dispute over the repeal of the law tied up the Senate (links via Combest) in a filibuster for many key hours during the end of the session.  There is no way of knowing how many harmful or just plain dumb bills were prevented from passage by the filibuster over the village law, which nonetheless passed in the end. (The Post-Dispatch struck a similar theme in its Sunday editorial, but I have to guess we have far different definitions of what constitutes a bad bill.)

So, in a sense, it was the perfect ending for the village law. And now, with its repeal, individual property owners will no longer be able to just declare themselves to be their own municipality on a whim. Lord knows the last thing we need in Missouri is more government.

The Metropolitan Sewer District, which provides stormwater and sewer services to Saint Louis city and County, has changed its billing practices. The Post-Dispatch has the story on it here. MSD’s own explanation is here. I like the change a lot, and not just because my bill is basically staying the same. I like it because it is good policy, whenever possible, to direct fees or taxes to the people who use — or, in this case, cause — the system, event, or service being provided. Now, obviously, you can’t do this for all things government provides. People who live in dangerous neighborhoods should not pay more for police protection than others. But for many policy areas, such as tolls on highways, it is good policy to make the user pay.

MSD’s new billing plan is for stormwater, not wastewater services. They are now taking into consideration how much of your property is able to absorb rainwater without sending it into the sewer system. So if you have a lot of land that is paved over, you are sending more water to the system than someone whose land is all grass and trees — so it seems very fair to me that you should pay more. To be sure, it’s the same rate, just a higher fee based on less permeable land.

The main dispute involves people who use a septic system for wastewater, who in the past did not pay anything for stormwater service either, even though they used the stormwater system. Actually, they would have received a charge for stormwater service, but because the charge was less than postage, MSD never actually billed anyone. The spokesperson for MSD could teach other PR people a thing or three about succinctness and clarity. From the article:

Lance LeComb, a spokesman for the district, said everyone should be billed because nearly all storm water eventually reaches the district’s storm water system, which includes creeks.

"Everyone benefits from it," LeComb said. "They have to pay for it."

As we often say around here, good tax policy involves basing taxes or fees widely, and then keeping them as low as possible — along with making the actual users of services pay fees directly, when that is possible. This new billing system does all of this. People on septic no longer get a free ride for stormwater service, and people who send more stormwater into the system pay more for the system. It all sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Centene Corp. is in the news again. After the collapse of the Saint Louis ballpark village incentive proposal (which, in addition to $78 million in direct tax incentives, also included their very own “Centene” sales tax district), Clayton has attempted to renegotiate its own incentive package to entice the company to expand its world headquarters in Clayton’s business district (apparently everyone’s forgotten about Claytons attempt to confiscate property for Centene in 2005 through eminent domain).

One sentence in the Post-Dispatch’s coverage is worth highlighting:

State and St. Louis County officials have joined Clayton in discussions with Centene over incentives for its world headquarters expansion.

We cover corporate welfare extensively, so I won’t dwell on this issue (though you should read Dr. Joe Haslag’s recent op-ed on the topic). But I would like to make a point. I suspect that these kinds of government “incentive” shenanigans are what most people think of when they hear that someone — a politician, political party, or even a Clayton-based think-tank — is “pro-business” or "pro-market."

Enticing business through governmental handouts is not pro-business. This is crony capitalism and one of the most debased political ideologies in the world. Being “pro-business” means that you believe in creating a business environment in which property rights are well-protected, people are free to contract with one another freely and without governmental interference, and competition is encouraged. Pro-business does not mean using the government to reward or punish favored companies or industries. It does not mean using tax dollars to reward the rich and the powerful at the expense of the poor. There’s nothing "market-based" about that.

The Post-Dispatch reports on the vote last night at the St. Louis County Council to end the county’s new trash collection program. The proposal failed, which means the new plan, with its trash districts, mandatory recycling, and competitively bid monopoly contracts will continue to move forward. We have discussed this issue as much as any other on this blog. There were some interesting quotes in the debate:

Kurt Witzel, of unincorporated south St. Louis County, objected to the waste district plan partly because he wanted the freedom to choose his own hauler.

"I understand the need for recycling," Witzel said. "But I do not see why a free market system cannot go forth."

Amen to that. However, I question the economics in this comment:

But Bryan Barcom, the president of American Eagle Waste Co., predicted that bigger companies would win the initial bidding war against smaller firms such as his, and would then be free to set high fees.

I guess he is saying that the larger companies will win all the business, drive out the competition, and then jack up their rates. I don’t agree, as long as they don’t award all eight district contracts to one company. Even if the larger companies do drive out the smaller one (which I hope does not happen), they will still have to compete with each other each time the bids go up for renewal. That will keep prices down, obviously. But I certainly sympathize with Mr. Barcom’s concerns about his business.

I have gone back and forth on this one, as some truly dedicated reader(s) may recall. I have a great deal of agreement with this point:

Rodriguez said the district plan was needed in order to reduce the number of trash trucks that served customers on his street. He said as many as 20 trucks rumbled down his street six days a week.

"The old streets in my neighborhood can’t stand up to the wear and tear of these heavy trucks and the hydraulic fluid they leak," he said.

Taxpayers throughout the county pay for the roads in the unincorporated areas, so we all have an interest in cost savings through reduced wear and tear. However, I have again concluded that the benefits of the free market, and the desire of the majority of the residents to continue the old free-market system, should win out and the trash plan should be scrapped. Get it? Scrapped …

Our former editor, Tim Lee, recently pointed me to this article that ran a couple weeks ago in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. From the article:

The Centene Plaza project in downtown Clayton, proposed in 2005, promised a world-class retail and office development designed by a world-renowned architect.

It was derailed last June when protracted legal fighting over the city’s attempt to take parcels by eminent domain ended with a Missouri Supreme Court ruling in favor of the defiant owners. The court ruled 6-1 that the parcels were not blighted and were beyond the reach of condemnation for a private purpose.

Sheehan disclosed this week that about three months after that ruling, the city of Clayton quietly arranged for all three landowners to sign sales contracts with the city, contingent upon Centene’s development’s moving forward. A city official confirmed that the sales were arranged.

But shortly after, Centene committed to Ballpark Village, beside Busch Stadium.

The Centene development would have worked out just fine if officials hadn’t first tried to pretend that the area was "blighted." Apparently, property development is possible even without forcible eminent domain seizures! Who’d have thunk it?

Any of you who have yet to read Tim’s excellent eminent domain study should be sure to check it out.

Some good news on the property rights front (which, I assure you, is not an April Fool’s joke — although if you want to read one of those, try this).

According to an article in the Post-Dispatch, the St. Charles City Council has planned to vote tonight on whether or not to remove the "blighted" designation given to the city’s historic Frenchtown district. Justin blogged about this previously, but tonight, the protest mentioned before could lead to actual change.

The St. Charles City Council hasn’t always made the best decisions when it comes to protecting personal freedoms, but it’s good to know that members of the Council have caught wind of the political zeitgeist and are attempting to protect their citizens’ property rights. Missouri’s "blight" designation is one of the most permissive methods through which eminent domain can be exercised, and the more that individual municipalities crack down on its liberal use, the more effective they will be at protecting property and clearing actual blighted areas. Let’s hope that the vote tonight goes the right way.

An economics blog I frequently visit scours the Internet for “Greenspan mess” sitings — articles in which the words “Greenspan” and “mess” are mentioned in the same paragraph (this occurs much more frequently as of late).

I think we could do the same thing in Missouri with the words “developer” and “blight.”

On today’s list: O’Fallon.

“City officials late Thursday night were debating whether to declare blighted the site of a proposed eco-friendly housing development to allow a developer to receive a tax break over 20 years.”

Missouri newspapers should just hotkey this sentence. It could read something like this:

“[State, County, City] officials [insert time] were debating whether to declare blighted the site of [insert property or district here] to allow a developer to receive a tax break over [enter years here] years.”

The nation was stunned in 2005 when the United States Supreme Court ruled that the United States Constitution allowed the City of New London, Conn., to force its citizens out of their homes simply because the city thought it could generate more taxes if their modest residences were replaced with luxury condominiums and high-end retail stores. The popular outrage against the Supreme Court’s decision resulted in a widespread effort (in which the Show-Me Institute’s director of policy, Jenifer Zeigler Roland, played a major role) to make sure that Kelo could not happen in other states.

Unfortunately, as has been demonstrated by a recent court decision, Missouri was among the states whose eminent domain reforms merely rearranged deck chairs on the Titanic. Unless the Missouri Supreme Court proved willing to restore the property rights guaranteed by the state’s Constitution, cities and agencies across the state could continue to take perfectly normal properties in order to give them away for the profit of a governmentally preferred owner. With last week’s unfortunate decision in City of Arnold v. Tourkakis, (and kudos to Nick for an excellent post on this topic) it seems unlikely that the Missouri Supreme Court is willing to prevent the eminent domain abuse that currently plagues this state.

This abandonment of property rights is deeply unsettling. As a nation — and as individual states — Americans adopted Bills of Rights
in order to make sure that certain essential liberties would never be
subject to restriction or elimination. Among those freedoms is the
assurance that governments have no right to take away someone’s
property unless it is required for the construction of a road or public
building. The real-life consequences when the government does take
someone’s property illustrate why this power must be tightly limited.

Eminent
domain is rarely threatened against wealthy people or those who can
fight back. Instead, the usual targets are communities composed of
minorities, the poor, and/or the elderly. In the middle of the
20th century, cities so regularly used eminent domain against black
neighborhoods that the practice was commonly referred to as "Negro
removal." That offensive label eventually fell out of use, but poor
black communities continue to be condemned far more frequently than
white communities. A 1989 study estimated that of 10,000 families that
Baltimore displaced in the name of removing blight, fully 90 percent
were African-American. Mindy Fullilove, an expert on the impact of
eminent domain on minority communities, estimates that more than 1,600
black neighborhoods have been destroyed nationwide.

But then there are elderly people. In Kelo v. New London, Wilhelmina Dery was an 87-year-old still living in her family
home, in which she was born. All she wanted was to live out her final
days in those beloved, familiar settings. She eventually did get her wish, but only because
she died before the city got its chance to kick her out of her home.

In
Norwood, Ohio, the city took the residence of Carl and Joy Gamble, an older couple who received their
condemnation notice just days after they were finally able to retire.
They were uprooted from the home in which they had raised their family
and built their American Dream, and separated from their nearby family and
friends, after which they moved into a small apartment with a daughter in Kentucky. After a
grueling three-year legal war, the Ohio Supreme Court vindicated their
rights, but the stress drove Carl to his grave and left Joy in such
delicate health that she couldn’t return to the home she had sacrificed
so much to save.

I was recently told
about an elderly couple in Rolla who weren’t physically able to cope
with a move when they were threatened with eminent domain. The wife had
Alzheimer’s disease and the husband was terrified to complicate her
dementia by moving her to an unfamiliar environment. Unmoved by their
plight, the city tried to make it look like they were just holding out
for more money. One councilmember said they should just move to a
nursing home.

Someone’s home
represents their stability and shelter, both in physical and emotional
ways. It is the centering location in their life, the place to which
they should be able to return each day and know that they have their
own place in the world. These things are especially precious for
people who can claim ownership of very little else. But rather than
protecting the rights of these citizens, both courts and legislatures have been content to
sacrifice their security in the name of "progress," or — more coarsely — so they can
be replaced with a wealthier, "more desirable" class of people.

Eminent domain abuse is not just unconstitutional — it is unjust, immoral, and abhorrent. And, assuming that Missouri’s lawmakers and courts will continue to stand by as more and more home and business owners are wrecked by these abuses, the people of this state will have no choice but to
amend the state Constitution in the hopes of restoring the security that should be an American birthright.

Frenchtown, a historic French quarter of St. Charles, is the latest challenger of spurious eminent domain abuse.

In 2006, the St. Charles City Council voted to designate 15 acres of land in the Frenchtown area as “blighted.” Once again, the rationale for the “blight” designation had little to do with actual urban decay. Rather, it was ostensibly seen as little more than a policy tool to award property tax break incentives to wealthy developers. For a review of Missouri eminent domain abuse, I remind readers to check out Tim Lee’s comprehensive study.

The worst part of the story, however, is the shameless defense by the city’s eminent domain advocates:

Supporters of the measure argued that a large-scale effort was needed to combat longstanding decay and that a piecemeal approach [...] wouldn’t work. They said eminent domain was a last-resort tactic that probably wouldn’t be used in most cases.

And yet these same advocates argue that eminent domain should be used in this situation. But what keeps future developers from appealing to the same logic? Surely, the eminent domain advocates recognize the slippery slope they have created. If property rights aren’t constitutionally protected, then there’s no reason to believe that any developer’s assets will be any more secure than the property they originally usurped.

What incentive do businesses have to relocate to a district that has already set a precedent for eminent domain abuses? What about the Homer Tourkakises of the world? Entrepreneurs who invest their time and savings into developing a vibrant business in St. Charles are now at the mercy of future political whims. Eminent domain doesn’t strengthen property values, it destroys them.

Who is the better steward of land resources: the vested individual with a business interest, or an unelected bureaucrat with a vision?

The Missouri Supreme Court has ruled that even noncharter cities can use eminent domain to confiscate people’s homes and businesses and make way for shopping centers.

Maybe we should replace the deteriorating Governor’s Mansion with a Lowe’s.