On June 23, 2005, the Supreme Court decided Kelo v. City of New London.
Ten years later, the decision remains controversial. Much of the disputed land, which the court ruled could be seized by the city of New London in an effort to get private businesses to redevelop it, remains unused and overrun by feral cats, The Blaze reports. Critics remain unconvinced.
"Ten years ago today, in Kelo v. City of New London, the Supreme Court ruled that the city of New London, Connecticut, could condemn 15 residential properties in order to transfer them to a new private owner for purposes of promoting 'economic development," George Mason University law professor and Cato Institute scholar Ilya Somin said in a piece for the Washington Post.
"Although the Fifth Amendment only permits the taking of private property for "public use," the Court ruled that virtually any potential public benefit qualifies as such, even if the government fails to prove that the supposed benefit will ever actually materialize…"
Legal expert Richard Epstein slammed the ruling in a piece for National Review.
"Ten years later, my reaction is the same as it was at the time: truly horrible," he wrote. "Justice Stevens and the Supreme Court were tone-deaf as to what moves people in dealing with property. Of all the cases decided since the year 2000, Kelo may not be the most important; ironically, it certainly was not the most controversial."
"But hands down, it was the decision that got more people indignant than any other."
Reason magazine called the decision a "debacle."
"Ten years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of the most destructive and appalling decisions of the modern era," Damon Root said in the piece. In Kelo v. City of New London, a 5-4 majority allowed a local government to bulldoze a working-class neighborhood so that private developers would have a blank slate on which to build a luxury hotel, a conference center, and various other upscale amenities. The city’s goal was to erase that existing community and replace it with a new commercial district that would (hopefully) fill the local coffers with more abundant tax dollars."
"According to the Supreme Court, this unsavory land grab qualified as a legitimate use of the city’s eminent domain powers because the city ‘has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community.'"
Huffington Post contributor Hilary Gowins warned of the ongoing implications of the Kelo decision.
"If the government can take land from Bill Tong, Garrick Beil and the homeowners in New London, Connecticut, the same thing can and will continue to happen to other property owners across the country," she said in her piece.