Kelo

Ilya Somin | 9.25.2024 5:06 PM

Last year, I wrote about how there might finally be some development on the site of the property condemned as a result of the Supreme Court's 2005 ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, the controversial 5-4 decision in which the justices ruled that the condemnation of homes for private "economic development" is permissible under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which only allows takings for a "public use." In January 2023, Renaissance City Development Association (the private nonprofit development firm formerly known as the New London Development Corporation, which took ownership of the property after it was seized by eminent domain) sold the condemned land to a developer, which was planning to build new housing on it. Up to that point, the only regular users of the condemned land since the last homeowners were forced out were a colony of feral cats. The supposedly carefully planned development project that justified the condemnations fell through, as also did a number of later proposed uses for the land.

The New London Day, recently reported that the development project is going ahead, but the city has given the developer a hefty $6.5 million tax break to facilitate it:

The City Council late Monday [Sept. 16] approved nearly $6.5 million in tax breaks over 20 years to a developer planning to construct 500 new apartments on two sections of the Fort Trumbull peninsula that have sat vacant........

© Reason.com