Connecticut Homeowners Question Eminent Domain
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On a quiet peninsula that juts out into the Thames River of Connecticut, weeds and wildflowers cover the empty lots where 90 homes and small businesses once stood - among them the eight houses that used to separate Susette T. Kelo’s tidy pink cottage from the blue house that Wilhelmina Dery’s grandmother bought in 1901 and where Mrs. Dery and her husband, Charles, still live. Ms. Kelo and the Derys are among seven property owners who refused to budge after city officials approved an economic development plan to upgrade their 90-acre waterfront neighborhood, known as Fort Trumbull, by creating prime office space, a hotel, 80 units of housing and a Coast Guard museum. Because these people would not sell their property, the New London Development Corporation took title to it through eminent domain, a decision upheld in March on a 4-to-3 vote by the Connecticut Supreme Court. The Fifth Amendment allows governments to take private property through eminent domain in exchange for “just compensation,” but only when it is for “public use.” Ms. Kelo, a nurse, who bought her two-bedroom house in 1997, said she and her neighbors were being swept aside so that wealthier people might replace them. She and Matthew R. Dery, a newspaper executive who lives next door to his parents, said real estate agents had appeared on their doorstep and told them they would have to sell their homes or lose them through eminent domain. “How come someone else can live here, and we can’t?” Ms. Kelo asked as sea gulls circled overhead and ferry boats to Block Island, R.I., and Orient Point, N.Y., were visible in the distance. “I’m being penalized for being a good resident.” Source : nytimes.com |