Kensington property owners: The city is stealing our land via eminent domain
“Around late September, property owners along Bodine and Cadwallader streets in Kensington started getting notices in the mail: The Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority wanted to take their property, and it would be setting the price. Maybe it was because it was so unbelievable — the idea that the city could just seize their property, …. — that the property owners didn’t take the correspondence too seriously at first. But over the past week — just in time for Christmas — they got news that it was done. “On December 18, 2012, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority acquired title to the referenced property,” the letters read, distributed by mail and attached in manila envelopes to signposts all along the square block.
Paul Chrystie, spokesman for the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, told CP via email: “The City is supporting a joint venture by Conifer Realty and the Arab American Development Corporation to develop 45 units of affordable rental housing, which was one of several developments selected through a competitive proposal process.”
Melmed, Samantha. Philadelphia City Paper 31 December 2012.