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Sunday, March 12, 2006

Law - Cincinnati eminent domain challenge makes news

"Woman vs. eminent domain: She may lose her home of 47 years" is the headline to this story in the Cincinnati Enquirer. The lengthy story begins:

Eighty-year-old Emma Dimasi has told friends and neighbors she wants to live the rest of her years on the corner of Clifton and Dixmyth avenues, in the small brick house she's owned since 1959.

The city has given her until Saturday to get out.

In a case that could have statewide implications, a Hamilton County magistrate will decide Monday whether the city of Cincinnati has the right to take Dimasi's house for a $4 million relocation of Dixmyth Avenue.

The taking of Dimasi's house is a routine and long-accepted use of eminent domain for a city like Cincinnati, which has filed 21 such court actions for road projects since 2003.

But Dimasi argues that private economic development - not public transportation - is driving the road project.

That's because Good Samaritan Hospital is contributing $1.28 million toward the project, which would give the hospital more room to grow as it continues a $122 million expansion. Under its agreement with the city, the hospital also stands to get whatever land is left over after road construction for $1.

The case is the first to test an Ohio law banning for one year the use of eminent domain for economic development if the property will ultimately end up in the hands of another private owner. And it's a prime example of what critics say is a legal system that stacks the deck against property owners.

State lawmakers are examining every aspect of that system in the aftermath of a U.S. Supreme Court case that held that states and cities have the power to take private property to give to another private owner. A case now before the Ohio Supreme Court will decide the issue of whether Norwood had the right to take residential property and give it to the developer of a shopping mall.

Here, from Jan. 12, 2006, is an ILB entry on the oral arguments in the pending Ohio Supreme Court case.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 12, 2006 10:54 AM
Posted to General Law Related