• Mount Pleasant declares four sq. miles "blighted" for eminent domain to Foxconn
    47 replies, posted
https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2018/06/05/village-says-foxconn-area-blighted-may-use-eminent-domain/671976002/ More than four square miles of Mount Pleasant were declared Monday to be a blighted area, giving the Village Board further leverage to seize property by eminent domain for Foxconn Technology Group’s massive manufacturing complex and surrounding development.Trustees voted 6-1 to declare as a blighted area some 2,800 acres of open farmland and a few dozen homes, all of it earmarked for Foxconn and the development expected to spring up around the planned electronics factory. Trustee Gary Feest was the lone dissenter, and one of only two board members to speak before the vote. The board’s approval was expected, and most Foxconn-area homeowners either already have agreed to sell or will be subject to the use of eminent domain for road widening. Still, holdouts remain — people who believe the 140 percent of market value the village has offered is unfair when owners of larger tracts of farmland were paid several times the pre-Foxconn price such property was bringing. And Monday’s action likely will further sharpen the battle lines already drawn over the Foxconn project, which is lauded by proponents as an engine of economic transformation and criticized by detractors as a taxpayer-financed boondoggle and environmental threat. “Tonight’s approval of the redevelopment plan is one more sign of progress toward Foxconn’s $10 billion, 22 million square foot advanced manufacturing campus,” Village President David DeGroot said in a statement. As proponents have in the past, DeGroot emphasized not the eminent-domain power the blighted-area designation gives the village, but rather the financial advantages the measure confers. Communities with plans such as the one Mount Pleasant just approved can finance the redevelopment by issuing bonds exempt from both state and federal taxes, which DeGroot said could save the village millions of dollars. In taking its action Monday, the village is using a section of state law that broadly defines blighted areas. Besides the commonly understood definitions of blight — dilapidated housing, overcrowding, high crime — the statute says an area can be deemed blighted if it is predominantly open and, for any reason, “substantially impairs or arrests the sound growth of the community.” The Foxconn factory is projected by the village to increase the property value of that area of Mount Pleasant nearly 80 times over and provide as many as 13,000 jobs. But Feest said the statutes use the word “blighted” for a reason. “Anyone who thinks ‘blighted’ has to be thinking there’s something wrong with the property,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with any of these properties. They are beautiful properties.” “We’re using a technicality to forward the village’s interests,” Feest said. “I don’t agree with that.” Also on hand Monday evening were a group of people planning a protest to coincide with the expected June 28 ceremonial groundbreaking for Foxconn and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Matt Flynn. Flynn, a critic of the state’s Foxconn deal, which offers the company up to $3 billion in incentive payments, has said that if he is elected he will go to court seeking to have the contract declared illegal. Monday, he said use of eminent domain to take property as Mount Pleasant envisions would provide further reason for a legal challenge. “This is a disgusting display tonight by the board,” Flynn said. “It really reminds me of Chinese communism, in other words, come in and take the land, do whatever you want, and I think it’s a despicable thing.” While Flynn and some other Democratic hopefuls have attacked the Foxconn deal, Republic Gov. Scott Walker and his supporters have said the project will deliver thousands of good-paying jobs and make Wisconsin a center for a new, high-tech industry.
Eminent Domain is theft. If I can to your walk up to you with your car's blue book value in cash and a gun to your head I'm still a car thief, but when the government does it with your home and livelyhood it's "in village's interest".
Reminder that this FoxConn deal isn't actually going to pay for itself for like 25 years, and FoxConn gets huge advantages up-front on the taxpayer's dime. So they've taken a massive up-front taxpayer investment with a questionable future return and paired it with abusing eminent domain to fuck residents over. Now that's what I call an America First project in action.
Its like that Doug stanhope bit; ..with liberty and justice for all!* *Must be 18, void where prohibited, some restrictions may apply, not available in all states.
Oh come off it. It can abused like in OP, but it's not inherently theft. The United States highway system has undeniably been a HUGE benefit to all of the United States ever since it was built, and it never would've been possible without eminent domain.
You talk about the Interstates like they are universal public good while ignoring the people who lost their homes and had their property values slashed by it. Not to mention the communities that were bypassed and left to rot.
Eminent Domain is not theft as it has reasonable applications, such as taking back land which is being unused for the good of the area or the people living there. However Eminent Domain can be used as a means of theft to steal land and handing it over to private companies for profit, as is being done here.
Using eminent domain to seize land for private use is disgusting and should be straight up illegal. Cronyism at its finest.
millions of work commuters and cargo trucks would never get to their destinations on time if they had to use shitty 1-2 lane local roads which are littered with 4 way intersections and crosswalks
This is super dumb. Eminent domain should not be used for private land use. And even in government use, it should be a more complicated process, in which alternatives are more thoroughly looked at , as it is not fair for the person owning that land.
my man the benefit of the interstate system so hugely outweighs those unfortunate side effects that I'm shocked you'd even try to argue that The people who lost their homes got paid fair market value for them. Yeah, might've been less than they would've liked, but they didn't come out with nothing and undoubtedly moved on with their lives. Property values going down sucks but unless you're in the business of flipping houses, it probably wasn't all that life changing for many people if anyone. The people in communities that dried up moved to more prosperous towns. Same shit happens when coal mines or what have you dry up. People relocate and go on with their lives. Nothing nearly as traumatic as getting your car stolen at gunpoint, lol.
Ain't the purpose of eminent domain to make shit actually useful to people, like infrastructure Using it for private endeavors is blatant crime, America so capitalistic yet with this they do exactly what communists did
I used to live in Mount Pleasant holy shit this is fucked
I'm not saying that american highways aren't important and a reasonable if not unfortunate use of ED. I'm just pointing out even they weren't perfect. Forcing people out of their homes so a private company can take thier land though? That's fucking tyranny.
Greed is universal
The benefits brought by the interstates far outstrip the (yes, still real) detriments they brought. Communities being bypassed by them isn't exactly some damning sin either, this has happened throughout the centuries. Ports have done it in the past with some being left behind by shifting trade priorities, railroads did it, interstates did it, (twice, even; look at Route 66), planes did it.
Well now it's blighted alright
I always find it surprising how many people think being authoritarian and terrible is exclusive to communism.
This is the government seizing land from people for a private business. If I were those home owners I'd arm up and say try and remove me. It's one thing to do it to take a few feet for sidewalks, telephone poles, road extensions, or even public recreational areas on unused land.... But this is so far and beyond what's appropriate and right. I honestly can't believe it isn't a crime. What am I saying. Yes I can. I've been saying for years that the American Flag should change its stars to dollar signs
Nothing says the party of individual and fiscal responsibility then your hard earned property being taken by the government.
are you kidding me? you might as well just say "I hate poor people" and save us the trouble. without the Interstate highway system, literally thousands of underserved and underprivileged communities would not be able to get the food or supplies they need for survival. people who think like you are the same people who argue for banning all cars without even attempting to comprehend how vehicular infrastructure primarily affects lower income and poverty stricken areas (that are typically never subsidized with public transportation)
Well yeah, of course there's going to be unfortunate side effects whenever you need to displace people to get a project as large as that done. Your original point was "eminent domain is theft equivalent to stealing a car". It isn't. At all. But yes, it is definitely being abused in the situation detailed in the OP.
Eminent Domain is a double edged sword. It's be used for great things in the past such as public parks, infrastructure such as waterworks and roads and rebuilding and revitalizing communities. Yes just as it can be used for good reasons it can be used for bad like for example this case or several other infamous cases where the government took land for private corporations to build on and the the corporations pull out and never do anything with it, leaving a broken and battered community with nothing to show for it. It's just another tool to be used like any other by the government, and as such it's important for the people to regulate that government to regulate that tool...
Militias should be intervening in cases like this instead of supporting a tax evading farmer.
Nah, never said that, but that's what they did
In fact the U.S. is so capitalistic that if you try and eminent domain land and the owner catches wind of it they will upgrade and build everything within their budget to maintain that land to the point where the local government cant afford it from its yearly budget. So it's not all bad.
*not all bad if you can afford to do that
There is evidence that the interstate highway systems that enabled the white flight to the suburbs made cities and the black folks that remained poorer. Some states in the south even used them to cut off and isolate black communities.
People talk about the colonial era as if it was the only time this shit ever happened, but it just keeps on happening.
lol imagine the place being so poor it can't expropriate some land
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