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Arizona
Arizona Property Rights Bill Could Hamper Redevelopment of Blighted Sites
In a tug of war between property rights advocates and city
officials over an eminent domain limitation bill passed from the
Arizona House to the Senate, the bill author, Republican
Representative Eddie Farnsworth, accuses municipalities of
''rampant'' abuses as they exercise ''absolute authority to take away
private property'' and points out that they still could condemn land
for light rail or other infrastructure projects, while League of
Arizona Cities and Towns legislative coordinator Kevin Adam
counters, ''The bill would hamper the cities' ability to redevelop
key areas such as Phoenix downtown.'' The bill would make
municipalities wait until a given site or a prospective
redevelopment area was 85-percent blighted before condemning it and
10 more years before putting it on the market. Local officials,
report The Arizona Republic writers from several cities, are
indignant. In Tempe, trying to reclaim a 200-acre contaminated and
trash-strewn site for an office-residential complex, chief planner
Neil Calfee warns, ''Without eminent domain, we wouldn't be able to
clean up the mess or deal with the environmental contamination.'' In
Yuma, seeking to help the depressed Carver Park neighborhood by
cleaning up its six trailer parks, replacing trailers with new
homes and deeding them to current residents, neighborhood services
manager Bill Lilly explains, ''Without eminent domain, our hands are
tied. The property owner knows what we're doing and is going to
shoot the price up. And we're not going to pay a million and a half
bucks for something that should cost $300,000.'' In Prescott, hoping
to revive the decrepit Ponderosa Plaza Mall where one shop owner
refuses to sell, city attorney John Moffitt says even if the city
condemned it and then let it sit idle for a decade, ''It's highly
unlikely Wal-Mart is going to wait 10 years.'' -- The Arizona
Republic
4/9/2003
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