Articles

Should a city be able to use legislative tricks to acquire land cheaply?

April 11, 2014 | By JONATHAN WILLIAMS

The Constitution requires the government to pay just compensation when it seizes private property for public use. However, if the City of Perris has its way, cities will be allowed to pay less than fair market value for private property they seize merely by amending their general plans. The California Supreme Court is set to … ...

Articles

The blight of redevelopment

January 22, 2014 | By CHRISTINA MARTIN

Last week, PLF filed an amicus curiae letter in the California Supreme Court, asking it to grant the Community Youth Athletic Center’s (CYAC) petition for review of an abusive scheme to transfer its private property to a developer for its private business venture.  Shocking as it may seem, similar transfers happens across the country and &# ...

Articles

Will California worsen its already terrible eminent domain laws?

January 06, 2014 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

When the infamous Kelo v. New London was decided in 2005, California was already one of the worst states in the nation when it came to eminent domain. In the five years leading up to that decision, California had used or threatened eminent domain against home and business owners some 858 times for the benefit … ...

Articles

"Redevelopment follies" now playing at Sacramento Cabaret!

December 12, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

The K Street Mall in Sacramento, and particularly its taxpayer-subsidized Dive Bar and Cosmopolitan Cabaret, has long been a poster-child for the injustice and unwisdom of government-run redevelopment schemes. These schemes give bureaucrats power to take away money that citizens would have spent at a shopping center or a store or a coffee shop, ...

Articles

Resuscitating redevelopment in California

September 12, 2012 | By JENNIFER THOMPSON

Columnist Dan Walters has been following recent bills introduced into the state legislature to resurrect redevelopment in California.  As you may recall, late last year the California Supreme Court upheld AB26, the bill which eliminated California’s redevelopment agencies.  This marked an important and hard-earned victory for property right ...

Articles

What redevelopment has really accomplished in California

March 06, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Our friends at the Castle Coalition have put together this video about redevelopment in California. It features, among others, Ahmad Mesdaq, who lost his San Diego cigar store to redevelopment plutocrats a few years ago. PLF filed this brief in Mesdaq’s case. … ...

Articles

House of Representatives passes eminent domain reform bill

February 29, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

After the infamous decision in Kelo v. New London, the fight over eminent domain abuse shifted primarily to states, many of which passed laws designed (or, at least, pretending) to restrict the power of eminent domain. Federal reform seemed less likely, for a number of reasons—primarily because most eminent domain abuse occurs in the name … ...

Articles

PLF's Robert Thomas to speak at eminent domain/redevelopment seminar

November 03, 2011 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Robert Thomas, PLF’s man in Hawaii, and blogger at inversecondemnation.com, will be joining the lineup of December 1 Strafford live phone/web seminar on Eminent Domain: Redevelopment Challenges for Local Government. For more information on the conference and how to register, click here. … ...