Our House in the Middle of the Street

Big Supreme Court decision just released.

The big court has now established that it is OK for governments to seize private property for tax revenue purposes. This was a serious issue in Lakewood (click here, here, or here for info) in 2003 as the mayor and council labeled a portion of the city as blighted. This enabled them (so they thought) to seize the property through eminent domain and use it for a retail and high-end housing development. Well of course this caused an uproar in both the neighborhood and the city. One of the designations that council came up with for "blight" was that the houses in the neighborhood in question did not have attached garages. Well, the majority of Lakewood homes do not have attached garages, so that was a stretch. 2003 was an election year as we were electing a new mayor and this issue was on the ballot. The then-mayor went on 60 Minutes to discuss the eminent domain issue and came across horribly. This ultimately led to her failure to get reelected and the defeat of the ballot issue in support of the new development.

Lakewood is a classic inner-ring suburb (and a great city). It's packed full of homes and there is little, if any, open land for new developments. With new "lifestyle" centers such as Legacy Village and Crocker Park, Lakewood and other inner ring suburbs need new developments to fiscally compete with these other suburbs that do have the land to develop. When this issue came into light a few years ago, the debate focused on the fact that the city wanted to take homes away from their owners. The majority of homes in Lakewood are 70-100 years old. Yes people (including my parents) have spent their whole lives in these homes and feel a connection to them, but they're your average American home. Nothing special. Where the city went wrong was their whole approach in seizing the homes. They pretty much played the role of the bully and expected things to turn out the way they wanted. This was a mistake. If the city had approached the home owners on a civilized manner and negotiated with them, then maybe things would have turned out for the good. Or if the city had waited 2 years....

I love Lakewood. Aside from its insane amount of bars, its where I grew up and I ultimately call home. I realize that it has its problems but I'll take the good with the bad. Another issue that the distractors of the proposal pointed out was "well, what if the development doesn't work out." Well, I'd much rather have the city take a risk in a development rather then sit back and lose retail & tax money to other suburbs.

In news on other Cleveland 'burbs, Scene magazine has an intriguing article this week on another city in the area.