D.C. GOVERNMENT SPREADS DESPAIR ON GOOD HOPE ROAD

Skyland Shopping Center sits at Good Hope Road and Alabama
Avenue in southeast Washington, D.C., in Anacostia, named
after the river that separates it from the rest of the
Capitol. Skyland is a non-contiguous collection of 170,000
square feet of retail properties with fifteen different
owners that sprawl across twelve acres next to five acres of
woodland. More importantly, Skyland, which lies in a city
that has seen some tough times, is a place of hope.

One of the owners is an African-American couple whose
business in northeastern Washington was burned down in the
1968 riots; they moved here a short time later, worked hard
and prospered. Another family bought their share of the
shopping center in the 1940's and, through the bad days
since, held on, pouring millions into their property. Two
men are more recent owners: long time employees of a liquor
store proprietor, they mortgaged their homes and bought the
store, pursuant to his will, after his death. Then there
are the tenants, each of whom demonstrates that the American
dream is vibrantly alive!

Moreover, Skyland is a thriving retail operation. Each day,
the parking lot that meanders among the buildings is a river
of traffic. Vendors, whose operations are illegal but that
flourish anyway, arrange their wares on the streets of
Skyland rather than before the upscale and multi-million
dollar redevelopment project across Good Hope Road.
Residents, 49 percent of whom come from households that earn
less than $35,000 a year, ride the bus to Skyland, shop at
the post office, grocery store, beauty shop, drug store,
check cashing store, and other outlets, then barter with a
freelance "taxi" to deliver them and their wares home.
Tellingly, the grocery is reputed to be the highest grossing
outlet of its regional chain.

To most folks, Skyland is a great success. A cross section
of Americans own and invest in property there. Tenants,
some newly arrived in this country, run businesses there.
Employees there believe they may one day own the boss'
business. And locals can shop there for an array of
reasonably priced goods and services.

But to the D.C. Council, Skyland is a "slum" that must be
condemned, razed, and, at a cost of $27 million, turned over
to a private developer for an unnamed retailer. In May,
after they passed "emergency" legislation, Council members
jetted off to a Las Vegas "big box" convention to shop the
property around; there were no takers. Experts say that the
numbers make no sense and that an economic disaster awaits,
which is nothing compared to what will befall people who
have poured their lives into Skyland. Some have decided to
fight back, but they face incredible odds.

In 1954, in a Washington, D.C. case, the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that the federal government could condemn a store,
which was neither "blighted" nor a public nuisance but
merely in an "undesirable" area, and sell it to a private
developer. Thirty years later, the Supreme Court went
further, eviscerating the constitutional requirement for
"public use." Wrote Justice O'Connor, "that property taken
outright by eminent domain is transferred in the first
instance to private beneficiaries does not condemn that
taking as having only a private purpose. The Court long ago
rejected any literal requirement that condemned property be
put into use for the general public."

Change, however, may be in the wind. In 2001, a California
federal district court barred a city's efforts to condemn
property that rested "on nothing more than the desire to
achieve the naked transfer of property from one private
party to another." Then, days ago, the Michigan Supreme
Court, "in order to vindicate our Constitution [and] protect
the people's property rights...," unanimously overruled a 1981
precedent that provided a blank check to governments wishing
to seize private property to give to other private users.

After months of darkness, there may be some light on Good
Hope Road.

This article can be found at www.mountainstateslegal.org