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Mt Pleasant’s shady land grab
By Chris | October 13, 2007
It’s been in the newspaper lately about Mt P’s little eminent domain abuse. Seems some property on Shem Creek was annexed into the town, at which time the developer had advised of his plans for the area (condos, boat slips, etc). Seems Mt P town council (who isn’t corrupt at all of course) decided that they didn’t want condos there and offered money to the owner to purchase it from him. I personally wonder that if they didn’t like his plans, then why vote for the annexation (it would have had to come up on two votes on separate dates)? In any event, at some point the town then dropped their offer from about $7B to $2B, and the owner said ‘pound sand.’ So, Mt P ‘condemned’ the land and will take it for their own use (a park, they say, on marsh land…yummy). A judge will now decide fair market value and the town will pay that amount to the land owner.
This sets dangerous precedent, and it’s no surprise to me at all that Mt Pleasant is the municipality to do it. I mean, it totally makes sense to use eminent domain when it’s actually for the public good, and not for the ‘well, if we can’t have it, neither can he’ crap Mt P just pulled - think something like a highway or some sort of project that is actually useful. What’s next? A municipality taking your front yard because you don’t want to sell it for them? Yes Chris, we’d like to put a park where your house is. Sell it to us. “No.” Okay, well we’ll take it because we can. How is that fair?
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