Supreme Court provides more protection for property rights
“Earlier this year, City Council approved a plan for the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority to acquire 17 privately owned parcels in Point Breeze for the future development of affordable housing. The plan was controversial, as are most plans that involve the government using its authority to take private property for public use, a power known as eminent domain.
The Point Breeze action was an example only of the most graceless form of that authority, which comes from the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The city identified private property it wanted to use—for the public good of providing affordable housing—announced that it was going to take it, and then agreed to pay the owners the fair market value of that property. And that’s perfectly legal: the Fifth Amendment protects property owners not from having their property taken at all, only from having it taken “without just compensation.”
The case worked through the court system. Lower courts sided with Koontz, whose son kept up the battle after he died in 2000, but the Florida Supreme Court ruled in favor of the water management agency. In a 5-4 decision, with Justice Samuel Alito writing the majority opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the state supreme court’s decision and remanded it back to that court for further proceedings.
The decision was hailed as a “property rights victory” in a Wall Street Journal editorial, and a “blow to sustainable development” in a New York Times op-ed. What it could mean for land use regulation in Philadelphia is likely to become clear only as it gets applied to individual claims of unconstitutional taking.”
Brey, Jared. Philly.cm 2 July 2013.