Liberty
Alerts, Institute for Justice
Institute for Justice.
December,
2011
In a landmark victory for private
property owners in the Golden State, the California
Supreme Court today upheld a
statute abolishing the nearly 400 redevelopment agencies across the
state. The court also struck down a law that would have allowed these
agencies to buy their way back into existence. The final outcome of the
case is that, in 2012, California’s
decades-long redevelopment nightmare will finally come to an end.
California redevelopment agencies
have been some of the worst abusers of eminent domain for decades, violating
the private property rights of tens of thousands of home, business, church and
farm owners. The Institute for Justice has catalogued more than 200
abuses of eminent domain across California
during the past ten years alone. In California
Scheming: What Every Californian Should Know About
Eminent Domain Abuse, the Institute for Justice exposed the enormous
amounts of taxpayer money used to fund these illegitimate land grabs. In
fiscal year 2005-2006 alone, redevelopment agencies’ revenues were an
astonishing $8.7 billion. In other words, 12 percent of all property
taxes in California
that year were sent to these bureaucrats.
As part of the state’s response to
its fiscal emergency and to stop this drain on the state’s resources, the
legislature passed, and Governor Jerry Brown signed, two laws: Assembly
Bill 1X 26, which dissolves redevelopment agencies, and Assembly Bill 1X 27,
which exempted agencies that agreed to make payments into funds benefiting the
state’s schools and special districts. The California
Redevelopment Association and the League of California Cities, among others,
challenged both laws, arguing that they violated the California Constitution.
The court held that AB 1X 26, the law
barring the agencies from engaging in new business and providing for their
windup and dissolution, was “a proper exercise of the legislative power vested
in the Legislature by the state Constitution.” The court concluded
that the Legislature has both the power to create such agencies “and the
corollary power to dissolve those same entities when the Legislature deems it
necessary and proper.” In contrast, the court concluded that AB 1X 27,
which allowed the agencies to continue to exist if they made certain payments,
violated a provision of the California
Constitution that prohibits the Legislature from requiring payments from
redevelopment agencies to the state.
“This decision represents the worst
of all worlds for California redevelopment
agencies—and the best of all worlds for California
property owners and renters,” said Dana Berliner, a senior attorney with the
Institute for Justice. “The agencies managed to achieve a decision that
upholds their dissolution while striking down a law that gave these agencies a
way to stay in existence. The agencies’ arrogance, so often employed
against property owners, finally proved their undoing.” The Institute for
Justice is a public interest law firm that is the nation’s leading defender of
victims of eminent domain abuse—when the government seizes perfectly fine
property not for public use, but for private development—across the country,
including in California.
While the decision focused on
specific provisions of the California
Constitution, its practical effect represents a significant victory for California property
owners. “Redevelopment in California
has been a billion-dollar, state-subsidized boondoggle that has completely
eroded private property rights through the abuse of eminent domain for private
gain,” said Christina Walsh, the Institute’s director of activism and
coalitions. “With the court’s decision, redevelopment has finally met its
long-overdue end, and property owners who have been living in terror across the
state can finally rest safe in what they’ve worked so hard to own.”
IJ attorney Bill Maurer said,
“Today’s decision reaffirms the common-sense conclusion that state agencies do
not have a constitutional right to perpetual existence. More importantly,
it means that California
is no longer lagging behind the rest of the country in respecting private
property. Rather than interfering with California’s recovery, this
decision should encourage it, as people considering moving to or staying in
California now know that their property cannot be seized and transferred to a private
entity by out-of-control, unaccountable redevelopment agencies.”
http://www.themoralliberal.com/2011/12/30/californias-redevelopment-nightmare-coming-to-an-end/