Wilmington Riverfront Fight
Delaware Online, August 23, 2007
Business owners in Wilmington are fighting the city’s plan to take their property using eminent domain.
Wilmington officials want to redevelop the riverfront, a plan 35 years in the making.
The city promised local business owner Ed Osborne and others fair market value and to relocate them to a business park near Garasches Lane.
-Clearly, communities need to redevelop blighted areas. The problem in Wilmington is that its citizens who are reasonable and responsible businessmen owning property in an area which is at least partially blighted. Then, the owners face the massive majority, such as that expressed in the Delaware Online article of the News Journal, in which it seems that the whole notion that there is nothing unfair in the process runs contrary to reality.
In the article, one of the questions raised was whether the owners were protected from abuse of authority. The only answer is "no," they are not fully protected. The courts will hold that the government has the right to take the property unless there is a clear abuse of discretion in the governmental activity. This action is unlikely to be found in a situation where a major portion of the area is blighted. At the same time, the notion that owners will be protected just does not meet with the reality in which owners do not get paid for business interruption and other damages. Lost profits will be difficult to obtain, and the value of the businesses may not necessarily be paid.
