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A property law firm from Arlington VA is looking into the case, pro bono.

So one figures there are only about 2500 houses in the entire town!

http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2009/western.html

http://mediamatters.org/tags/western-journalism-center

may want to find a better source, like

http://www.wlky.com/news/charlestown-residents-sound-off-on-plan-to-demolish-homes/26837426

http://www.newsandtribune.com/news/clark_county/article_3ec2b9a3-abb1-5572-9c16-2a2d74d1ca50.html

They are both written to sound in support of the plan whereas the WJ article seems to support the resident and condemns the right-wing mayor.

And I'm sorry to say that both parties are guilty because it requires cooperation across partylines, which means that everyone needs to have a little bit of profit for inducement. That's what makes the thirdway concept so dangerous to individual American freedom.

Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005) was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another private owner to further economic development. In a 5–4 decision, the Court held that the general benefits a community enjoyed from economic growth qualified private redevelopment plans as a permissible "public use" under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Thanks, Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer for this pile of shit.

Pretty much everyone in the country along the entire political spectrum was disgusted by that ruling.

Except for extreme rich.

Pretty corrupt.

That decision means your very home is subject to destruction if corporate power wants it.

and disagrees with Ginsburg.

And the disgusting irony: the land still sits unused, never developed. The homeowners were ripped off for nothing.

FMV (Fair Market Value) for their property. I would love to find out what some of the streets are, with that I could do a quasi-appraisal* of some of the properties. Hard to believe those homes would come in at $15k, unless they are mobile homes, or in horrid shape..

*Did residential appraising for 13 years with my father.

But many times it doesn't work out that way.

they wouldn't get whatever they originally paid for them

Most of the houses I looked at in the neighborhood were gaining value until 2010 to 2011. Some had modest decreases in value until this year when many lost about one third of their valuation according to the county tax assessor.

What catastrophe has happened in that one neighborhood in the last year to cut property values that much? Or is the county devaluing the homes to justify buying them cheaply and destroying them?

Take a look at the figures I posted below.

FDR speaking before a crowd of 30,000 at the Techwood Homes dedication ceremonies held at Georgia Tech’s football stadium. to announce the clearing of a slum. Old dilapidated buildings were being torn down and replaced with new and modern homes. The existing residents of those slums were allowed to move into those homes at no cost to themselves.

That's the way urban renewal USED to be.

Now it's evict the poor to sell to the rich.

The thing is that we no longer have private property. We just rent it from the local government. Stop paying your taxes and see what happens. Zoning is the biggest offender of freedom.

In my community local zoning goes so far to actually dictate some architecture. I can't dig a hole or cut MY trees without asking permission. I can't do anything within 100 feet of my stream. 200 feet total. That is not freedom!!! I have no control over that 200 foot swath of land. I just get to pay taxes on it.
This community is republican, this county is republican run. Yet the zoning is out of control. When you bring up the fact that this is not freedom the republicans just grin. They know exactly what they are doing. They are taking away control and power from citizens. Zoning in the state of Pa. is so out of control our state government passed a bill that takes away the power of local zoning as it relates to farms. Farmers get a pass. A pass that gives me hope. Local zoning can do nothing that interferes with farming in PA.

So yes the next logical step would be for the government to just take personal property!!!!! And they are doing it. They are taking land and homes and the police will take your money at a traffic stop.

What the government consistently does is offer just enough below market value so you won't go hire a lawyer. I have watched them do it time and time again. One guy did fight and win. That was sweet.

Where did I leave that pitch fork. Where is my wife she will know. Gota go.

OK but you gotta bring the torches.

And give it to corporations.
I guess public property wasn't enough.

What bullshit.

That is unbelievable. I hope he gets voted out of office real soon.

It's corruption. I have seen eminent domain do good things. But that is ridiculous.

THIEFS

Apropos. Perhaps that was your intent. I found it amusing, at any rate.

Tar, feathers, and a stout rail to run the lardass out of town on...

But that is not the total amount that might be paid, it's the amount of grant money the town could get:

I looked up just one of the streets in the affected subdivision, Arlington Avenue on the Clark County Indiana Tax Assessor website. ALL the valuations of the single family homes on that street dropped drastically between 2013 and 2014. The loss of value is not because of the recession - values actually were going up until 2010 or 2011 for ALL of the homes I looked at. Until the past year none dropped drastically in value and most went up slightly until the last few years. Some of the homes have dropped nearly a third of their value in just one year according to the valuations on the tax assessor's site. This is the value of the homes, not the tax rate so changes in rates is not what I am seeing.

This looks very hinky to me, as if the county is trying to justify destroying the homes by devaluing them.

Here is a list of the values for the ones I looked at (in thousands so 27.5 = 27,5000):

2013 ------ 2014
28.9 ------- 26.0
37.9 ------- 25.0
53.1 ------- 32.5
41.5 ------- 25.5
40.6 ------- 25.2
55.0 ------- 36.7
49.3 ------- 33.1
63.6 ------- 36.1
31.4 ------- 19.6

http://www.xsoftin.com/clark/default.aspx

Growing up in Indiana, everyone knew that Democratic hotbeds centered
around urban areas, like Indianapolis, South Bend, Fort Wayne, Evansville and
the NW region near Chicago. The rural areas vote Republican.
This is straight out of the Republicans play book.

I don't like the government using eminent domain to transfer private property from
owner to another owner. If the developer wants it bad enough buy the property.
Why should any developer personally profit from eminent domain?

But, I'm willing to bet the house, that come next Tuesday, Charlestown will vote in
another Republican congressman, State Rep., sheriff, mayor, ... you name it, they'll
have an (R) next to their name. (i.e. Incumbent Todd Young).

Never realizing that one has everything to do with the other.