Real Estate & Property Law

Acquiring Property to Stop Development

By Alan Ackerman

Sherwood Voice

 Task force member Mary Peyton was interrupted several times by members asking whether she didn’t have a vested interest in the project because she was doing real estate work for another of developer Charles Hinson’s subdivisions.

The civil attitude Maumelle has promoted over the years seemed to go by the wayside for the sharply divided panel. At most city functions, speakers have been discouraged from speaking directly to individual members or audience members, bantering with them and especially from interrupting them.

Apparently opponents to the peninsula development have created a new plan for thwarting its development — condemning the property under eminent domain.

Jeff Van Patten, a Maumelle resident and task force member who led his Manitou Drive neighbors in opposing the plan earlier this year, first proposed the purchase of the peninsula by the city.

With a flip chart to explain his proposal, the North Little Rock developer said he was still opposed to the watered down plan and told task force members he believed that if his neighbors went on record that they won’t give up, the city should condemn the land and buy it…

…Davis said the law allows a city the option to obtain property for a public function and ensures that the owner is paid the fair market value. She said the City Council would have to vote for condemnation of the property and the city would have to file condemnation proceedings in court…

…Van Patten said his idea was to pay the developer a fair market value for the land. Audience members suggested it could be turned into a park, one of the original uses for part of the land. Van Patten’s group opposed this, suggesting it would bring too much traffic through their neighborhood and bring in the wrong kind of people at all hours of the night…

…Peyton said the issue about building in a flood plain would be up to the federal government to determine whether the buildings could withstand a flood. She said she and Maumelle engineer Bob Holloway had seen a lot of developments opposed by residents citing traffic, such as the Osage development. She said Osage opponents suggested the new residents would kidnap babies, sell drugs and do things behind trees…

Nothing is more dangerous than attempting to acquire property on the cusp of development in order to stop the development.  The profit is effectively built in by the time the developer has the project plans, much less the approval.  Jumping into take the development away, especially to benefit other developers, is not Public Use as generally contemplated by the Constitution. 

Full post as published by National Eminent Domain Blog on September 02, 2008 (boomark / email).