Los Angeles to seize some 30 small businesses in Hollywood through eminent

[question everything]

Saturday, March 4, 2006

Los Angeles to seize some 30 small businesses in Hollywood through eminent domain

By: North County Times wire services

HOLLYWOOD -- Los Angeles officials plan to seize some 30 small businesses in Hollywood through eminent domain to make way for a $400 million residential-commercial project anchored by a hotel, it was reported Friday.

The condemnation proceedings, authorized by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, set the stage for one of the most ambitious revitalization efforts in Hollywood, the Los Angeles Times reported.

But the action is being decried as heavy-handed and unfriendly by homeowners and merchants who said it was wrong to use public money and power to benefit a private developer, according to the newspaper.

(snip)

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/03/04/news/state/17_22_583_3_06.txt

[malaise]

1. I can't wait until people

decide to defend their property. Should be real fun.

[Boojatta]

2. Los Angeles to seize businesses or to seize land owned by businesses?

Is Los Angeles going to seize all assets of the businesses including equipment, inventory, trademarks, information about customers, etc?

[question everything]

4. It seized the buildings. Not the contents, as owners

who want to keep their businesses will relocate to other areas - with their supplies and inventories.

[FloridaPat]

6. Just the land. You get to leave with whatever you want.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

3. this is questionable- the Hollywood and Vine area?

The Brown Derby?
The FROLIC Room?
The Greyhound Bus station?
The Subway terminal?
The several large Parking Lots?-I know they are small businesses.
The Hollywood/Vine Building? (20 someodd stories-huge Bldg)
The historic older 10 story buidings next to the Subway station??

This article doesn't say who is affected?
They should wait and get their facts before they print stuff like this.

[question everything]

5. Here is the link from LAT

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hollywood3_mar03,1,7336774.story

Luggage store owner Robert Blue said his historic, 78-year-old building was designed by an architect who helped set the tone of Hollywood in its golden age — and who went on to win an Academy Award for his art design work on the classic Errol Flynn-Olivia de Havilland film "The Adventures of Robin Hood." Architect Carl Jules Weyl won the 1938 Oscar for best art direction.

Other businesses that will be displaced include a nail-and-hair salon, a cocktail lounge, insurance office and a state Department of Motor Vehicles facility, along with Angelyne's business office.

The landmark Taft Building on the northwest edge of the site will remain.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

7. I know the building on the NE corner-my friend had a recording studiothere

They have to leave it alone along with the one across the street.

[zann725]

12. Isn't the Stella Adler Theatre (hugely historic building) in that area?

If so, could be a fight there.

'Course there wasn't a "fight" when Turner/Kerkorian bought MGM, gutted/"remodeled" its historic Thalberg building with modern cubicles...and threw into huge dumpsters endless invaluable keepsakes from 30-60's films kept in various soundstages.

[Rex]

8. Business counts far more than individual liberties.

So sayith these assholes running the country at the moment. Fuck them all.

[rodeodance]

9. the SC ruling has really really really been shity for people.

[henslee]

10. My comm. property was taken this way. I never truly recovered.

[fasttense]

11. What a scam the dancing supremes have allowed.

Great, I wonder when the pretext of commercial improvement will be used to take dissident's homes and businesses? We certainly have a fine mess in this country where even your property is no longer your property.

[1932]

13. Why can't the free market settle this problem?

If the land is so valuable for the new project, why can't the private corps who will benefit pay the current owners what their land is worth?

I understand that there would be problems with irrational holdouts, but there must be some FREE MARKET mechanism by which a developer can negotiate with a group of individual owners so that everyone pays and receives a fair price for their property.

Right?

Can't we get the nation's best MBA students and professors to work out a free market mechanism?

Or maybe the government does have a role to play -- but do we trust our government to get the best price for the people?

[wordpix2]

14. what's being ignored is the Constitution's 5th Amendm. clause that

states: 'nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.' There is nothing in the Constitution that allows private property to be taken for private use. The SC-Kelo ruling has put the whole nation on the slippery slope of taking private property for private use and the powers-that-be can decide whose property can be transferred for their preferred use. This is scary shit.


NATIONAL EMINENT DOMAIN POWER

Overview

''The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says 'nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.' This is a tacit recognition of a preexisting power to take private property for public use, rather than a grant of new power.'' 160 Eminent domain ''appertains to every independent government. It requires no constitutional recognition; it is an attribute of sovereignty.'' 161 In the early years of the nation the federal power of eminent domain lay dormant, 162 and it was not until 1876 that its existence was recognized by the Supreme Court. In Kohl v. United States 163 any doubts were laid to rest, as the Court affirmed that the power was as necessary to the existence of the National Government as it was to the existence of any State. The federal power of eminent domain is, of course, limited by the grants of power in the Constitution, so that property may only be taken for the effectuation of a granted power, 164 but once this is conceded the ambit of national powers is so wide- ranging that vast numbers of objects may be effected. 165 This prerogative of the National Government can neither be enlarged nor diminished by a State. 166 Whenever lands in a State are needed for a public purpose, Congress may authorize that they be taken, either by proceedings in the courts of the State, with its consent, or by proceedings in the courts of the United States, with or without any consent or concurrent act of the State. 167


http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/14.html