Eminent Domain Legislation Sent to Gov.

Senate Bill 881, Printer's No.1738
<http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/BI/BT/2005/0/SB0881P1738.HTM> ,
was presented to the Governor on April 26, 2006, for signature. The
proposed Act would amend Title 26 (Eminent Domain) of the Pennsylvania
Consolidated Statutes, providing for limitations on the use of eminent
domain; and making a related repeal.
 
The final bill can be found online at:
http://www2.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/BI/BT/2005/0/SB0881P1738.pdf
Its legislative history can be found online at:
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/BI/BH/2005/0/SB0881.HTM
 
For an article about the new Eminent Domain legislation,entitled "Limits
for Pa.'s eminent domain -- The Senate approved stricter guidelines for
taking property", see: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14428103.htm
<http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14428103.htm> The article is
copied below. According to the article, it is not clear whether or not
Gov. Rendell will sign the legislation into law. However, the
Pennsylvania Realtors Association appears to support the legislation,
according to its policy statement found online at:
http://www.parealtor.org/content/SenateApprovesPiccolaEminentDomainLegis
lation.asp
 
________________________________

Sent by: Neil E. Hendershot, Esq.

Goldberg Katzman, P.C., 320 Market Street, Strawberry Square, P.O. Box
1268, Harrisburg, PA 17108-1268

Ofc: 717-234-4161; Fax: 717-234-6808; Email: neh_at_goldbergkatzman.com
<mailto:neh_at_goldbergkatzman.com> ; Website: www.goldbergkatzman.com

________________________________

 
Limits for Pa.'s eminent domain -- The Senate approved stricter
guidelines for taking property
 
By Diane Mastrull and Amy Worden

Inquirer Staff Writers

In an effort to better shield home and business owners from government
land grabs, the Pennsylvania Senate gave final legislative approval
yesterday to new restrictions on the use of eminent domain for private
economic development.

As part of a compromise to get the bill through, the measure would not
apply to some property already under the threat of condemnation. These
exemptions are intended to protect revitalization work in Philadelphia,
Norristown and Chester.

Still, some of the harshest critics of Pennsylvania's eminent domain
laws praised the unanimously passed Senate bill because it would replace
subjective criteria for condemnation with more quantitative measures.

A spokesman said Gov. Rendell wanted to see how well the legislation -
which includes a separate bill dealing with reimbursements to owners of
seized property - "balances the rights of property owners with the
development needs of communities" before deciding whether to sign them.

Elizabeth G. Hersh, executive director of the Housing Alliance of
Pennsylvania, in Glenside, said the bill represented "a lot of effort
put into building consensus" as competing measures bounced back and
forth in the General Assembly.

Pennsylvania becomes the 18th state to have passed legislation to
curtail - if not prohibit - the use of eminent domain since June,
according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

That was when the U.S. Supreme Court, with its ruling in Kelo v. City of
New London, triggered nationwide concern that any property was
vulnerable to condemnation. The justices found that the Connecticut city
could force the sale of houses and businesses in a neighborhood to make
way for private economic development even without the "blight"
designation that usually is required.

By the end of the year, legislative efforts had been launched in
Congress and more than 30 states to try to prevent the kind of property
seizures the high court had endorsed. Among those are pending bills to
limit eminent domain in New Jersey.

In Pennsylvania, the focal point of months of debate has been how to
define blight and how much of it needs to exist before an area can be
designated a redevelopment zone and subject to eminent domain. The
blight definitions have been often criticized as too vague and
subjective. One of the region's most publicized debates over this issue
flared in Ardmore over a failed attempt to use "blight" to justify a
controversial revitalization project there.

Under the new bill, specific conditions such as a threat to health and
safety, abandonment and tax delinquency would constitute blight.

"Before this bill, Pennsylvania law allowed condemnation of virtually
any area by labeling it blighted," said Sen. Jeffrey Piccola (R.,
Dauphin), who wrote the bill. "Now we've tightened the definition of
blight so that it applies to areas with real, objective concrete harms
to the public. It can no longer be used to take ordinary neighborhoods
for private development or to take neighborhoods just because the people
who live there have less money."

Though she remains concerned that those who have the most difficulty
finding housing - people of low income - are often "victimized" by
eminent domain and the uprooting it forces, Hersh said the legislature's
efforts this week to "tighten up" the definition of blight are "a step
forward."

Meanwhile, Joel Johnson, assistant executive director of the
Redevelopment Authority of Montgomery County, was relieved yesterday
that Pennsylvania lawmakers had responded to the lobbying efforts of his
agency and others to grant exemptions for older communities, such as
Norristown, where revitalization is sputtering to life and eminent
domain has been used to acquire property for a downtown parking garage.

Under the new legislation, the blight designation in effect in
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Norristown and other places might not meet the
new legislative definition, but it would be permitted through 2012.

At 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia coalition of
anti-sprawl advocates who consider eminent domain a valuable
redevelopment tool, president Janet Milkman was not ecstatic but was far
more content than she's been.

"It was a valiant effort to take a very powerful tool of government and
make it more fair," Milkman said.

In December, she denounced an earlier version of the Senate bill as
"detrimental to the state as a whole and particularly to our older
communities."

________________________________

Contact staff writer Diane Mastrull at 610-313-8095 or
dmastrull_at_phillynews.com.
 
 
Received on Mon May 01 2006 - 08:45:09 PDT