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Printable Format My sister-in-law came back from a recent trip to Poland outraged at how t hat former communist country treats its citizens. An acquaintance of her s owns a beautiful home in the Polish countryside and is now involved in an ugly court battle because a government official was so impressed wit h the property that he began the legal process of taking it for himself. That sort of outrage would never happen in America, for heaven's sake. A place where every ma n's home is his castle and where the government can't just take property for the heck of it, thanks to a sophisticated system of property rights . At least that's what my sister-in-law and the vast majority of America ns think. The experience of that Polish homeowner isn't much different from what happens every day in southern C alifornia. And don't think it's only on the left coast property rights a re treated shabbily. Eminent-domain abuses are rampant in every state in America. In the city of Cypress, a well-kept middle-class community in the north O range County suburbs of Los Angeles, a large non-denominational church m ade the tragic mistake of operating with the assumption that this is sti ll a free country. The Cottonwood Christian Center negotiated the purcha se of an 18-acre property in a commercial center with zoning that specif ically allows the construction of a church. The church bought the land and developed plans for an attractive architec t-designed community center-a first-rate project that would be a conside rable improvement over an empty parking lot next to a sprawling racetrac k Trouble started when the church submitted plans to the city to gain t he necessary approvals. This was the last large tract of vacant l and in the city, they realized. If a church builds a facility there it w on't pay much in the way of property or sales taxes. So city officials h ave found every reason to deny the church a permit to proceed with the p roject, and began shopping the land around to tax-generating companies. The latest in this long and deceitful process: The City Council, at the u rging of the city manager, voted to take the property under eminent doma in (while still claiming it is willing to "negotiate" a settlement) and plans to hand it over to developers, most likely at deep discount prices , to build a Costco retail center. The national discount chain is notori ous for strong-arming cities into using eminent domain on its behalf. "It is hubris for the city of Cypress to decide a church isn't the best u se of land owned by the church," Assemblyman Ken Maddox said. "In the So viet Union, Stalin seized churches and turned them into museums. Cypress seizes a church and wants to turn it into a Costco. At least Stalin loo ked for something with artistic merit." Maddox is one of only a handful of elected officials willing to speak out against a process that has become so commonplace that many officials ca n't understand why the Cottonwood issue is even controversial. It's not just a possible "taking" that's at issue, but an entire taxpayer-funded smear campaign by a city against a property owner. Cypress has launched a public-relations crusade against the church for defending a concept of property rights that city officials view as arcane. Taxpayer money is spent to pay for a push poll designed to show the true benefits of kicking the church off its land. A pricey city-sponsored pub lic effort is bashing the church and implying that religious fanatics ar e selfishly trying to build something that will deprive the city of need ed revenue to pay for parks, schools, senior centers, after-school progr ams, and more. It always creeps me out when life resembles an Ayn Rand novel, but that's exactly what's happening here. Craven officials are allied with looting companies to defame and then rob a group of people who are trying to li ve their own lives their own way on their own property. Fiscal Crisis Invoked Sophisticated supporters of the city make an argument that's used repeate dly on behalf of the many cities that operate this way. Tax-limiting Pro position 13, the California ballot initiative that capped property tax i ncreases unless approved by a two-thirds vote, limited city revenues, th ey say. Furthermore, the state of California has repeatedly dipped into funds belonging to cities to pay for state priorities. Given this fiscal "crisis," cities have no other choice but to turn to sales taxes as a w ay to pay for needed services. So cities must use eminent domain to assu re that every piece of developable land has its tax potential maximized. Actually, the local budget "crisis" isn't that different from the nationa l one-it's a question of too much spending rather than too little revenu e In California cities, cops routinely make six-figure salaries, bureau cracies are huge and expanding, city halls are gilded palaces, union fea therbedding is rampant, and officials spend money on open-space acquisit ion and other costly amenities with frightening abandon. Municipal-finance experts in California correctly refer to the "fiscaliza tion of land use." Governments have immense power over what gets built w here, and they use it to approve only those projects that bring in the m ost tax revenue. This has exacerbated the housing problem in southern Ca lifornia, because cities view housing as a drain on their resources and therefore force homebuilders to make all sorts of concessions before get ting approvals. But coveted retail complexes-1 percent of the sales tax goes into city discretionary budgets-are lured with ridiculous subsidies and promises of using eminent domain on their behalf. This is accomplished through California's 1950s-era redevelopment law. Ot her states have similar laws called different things. In California, the good-government "liberals" wanted to come up with a way to help cities clean up blighted neighborhoods. Every city can start a redevelopment ag ency, which is technically separate, but operates as a city department. In almost every case, the city council is the agency's governing body. Simply put, agencies can declare areas blighted, based on the broadest po ssible standards. Once an area is blighted, and the city goes through an official hearing process, every increase in property value-called tax i ncrement-goes directly into the agency's budget. Tax dollars are used to subsidize developers, pay fo r consultants, and acquire land. Agencies gain eminent-domain powers to take property from one private owner and give it to another. Government officia ls are granted central-planning and confiscatory powers that would make a Soviet commissar jealous. It's such a handy development tool that few cities can resist using it. So the bulk of major development projects, e specially in the more densely populated areas where land isn't sitting f allow, are driven by city officials who serve as land-clearing agencies for big developers. The process is rarely about blight removal and mainl y about finding ways to turn areas that produce little tax revenue (that is, your church or older neighborhood) into sales-tax bonanzas (that is , strip malls). No wonder southern California is an endless sea of Wal-M arts, Costcos, and Home Depots. It's just too difficult to assemble 15-acre tracts without using eminent domain, according to a development specialist who handles land acquisiti on for Costco. In other words, companies are unwilling to play by the ru les of the free market, where buyers must cajole willing sellers to part with their properties. It's so much easier to have government thugs jus t take the land and hand it to you on a platter, with taxpayers picking up much of the tab. It may not be nice to use eminent domai n for private purposes, but in America the courts still insist that prop erty owners get paid just compensation. Those who play ball with the city of ten get amounts that approach gifts of public funds. Those who try to de fend their businesses, however, often get subjected to vicious hardball tactics. It's not unusual for victims of eminent domain to spend years i n court trying to get just compensation. And what about people who ...
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