TBlumer
BizzyBlog
4/23/2011
click for larger view of Kelo house
In its infamous June 2005 Kelo vs. New London ruling, a Supreme Court majority allowed the city of New London to seize the properties of holdout homeowners in that city’s Fort Trumbull area for the “public purpose” of economic development, not a “public use” as the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment requires.
It has been eleven years since the litigation began, six years since the court’s ruling, and almost five years since the final settlement between the City and final holdouts the Cristofaro family and Susette Kelo, whose former home (pictured at the right) now stands elsewhere as a de facto monument to the perils of overbearing government. The land involved is still vacant, and nothing of substance has since happened. In late 2009, Pfizer, the economic linchpin which supposedly drove the city’s need to remake the area, announced that it was pulling out of New London.
After several false starts, the city is working with a new developer. As of February of last year, this developer wanted to put rental townhouses in an area where century-old, largely owner-occupied homes once stood.
Early Friday, the New London Day’s Kathleen Edgecomb reported a new twist. Wait until you see the what the developer wants before going forward…
The article continues at BizzyBlog
