After a brief, but welcome, hiatus, it appears that Mayor Seng and the City of Lincoln have brought the hot topic of eminent domain abuse
back into the spotlight. The first paragraph of Deena Winter's article on the topic is beautiful:
Chan Hua's grandparents lost a hog and farm operation to Communist China. His parents lost a construction company in Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge. And now, Hua fears he's about to lose his Chinese restaurant to the city of Lincoln.
Granted, Winter's comparison of Lincoln to China and Cambodia is a little over the top. But only a little.
To be clear, the City and Hua are still in negotiations, so eminent domain is not the primary option at this point. Still, it is an option because the property has been declared blighted. Then again, Lincoln will declare
anything blighted, so don't put too much stock in that declaration. Communities often leverage the blight label as a way to get property owners to back down during negotiations.
Hua's property was valued at $199,200 during the 2005 tax year. He paid $290,000 for the property on December 23, 2003. The nearly $100,000 gap illustrates the vast difference that often exists between the taxed value of property and its market value. (Both of which are distinct from the value of the property to the property owner, which is often much higher.) Also remember that new tax valuations will come out in June, so the tax figure may be revised.
At some level this appears like a simple dispute. The City wants a chunk of land for public use (a parking garage). The property owner doesn't want to sell. No big deal, right? The owner should be bought out, or, in extreme circumstances, eminent domain might fairly be used. But that simplistic perspective doesn't work here. The City played its cards all wrong. The City admitted early in the process that Hua's property is not necessary for completion of the parking garage project. Instead, his property is only necessary for some of the secondary
private projects that may be built on top of the parking garage. In other words, eminent domain is not an option for taking Hua's property because the desired use for his property is private rather than public.
Well, that isn't entirely accurate. Eminent domain is an option even in this case because of the Supreme Court's ridiculous ruling in
Kelo v. New London. But using eminent domain would come with a price: it would be labeled as eminent domain abuse, and suddenly public outcry would become a significant liability. In a worst case scenario (from the City's perspective), the City could find itself in a battle with the
Institute for Justice. The City's lawyers would really have fun with that.
Long story short, this scenario would work out much better for everyone if Lincoln would just offer Mr. Hua an extremely fair price for his property, along with support services for relocating his business. What's "extremely fair"? Mr. Hua paid $290,000 two years ago. I say offer up $350,000. Overkill? Not really. Remember that the City is strong-arming a man out of his property against his will. We owe him not only for the "real" value of his property, but we also owe him enough to try to overcome his unwillingness to sell. To me, $350,000 is within the range to satisfy those constraints.
