Glendale officials prepare the way to abuse eminent domain

Author: Timothy Sandefur

That ought to be the headline here. Glendale redevelopment bureaucrats have prepared a report saying the city should enter into an exclusive development agreement with a powerful private developer to develop land that currently belongs to somebody else. That is, to Roy Patel, whose non-blighted, commercially successful Golden Key Hotel currently sits on that land. As the story makes clear, the city doesn’t care about eliminating blight or cleaning up any bad neighborhoods. It’s all about exploiting a private commercial opportunity:

“An expansion of the Americana provides an opportunity to develop new, contemporary retail space that is currently not found on Brand Boulevard, the Galleria or the Americana and has good potential to diversify the city’s retail base and strengthen the regional draw of the downtown retail core,” according to the report.

Of course the city claims they aren’t planning on using eminent domain at this point, but that’s just a word game. Once the city makes the development agreement, it starts the process for abusing eminent domain for private profit.

Please join PLF and our property rights allies on Tuesday morning in Glendale as we protest the abuse of eminent domain!