By Susan Vela
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A watchdog group that fights what they call eminent domain abuse across the country will visit Greater Cincinnati this week, extending hope to Norwood and Evendale residents who fear that their communities will claim their properties because they don't meld with elected officials' visions of upscale shops and businesses.

Two attorneys from the Institute for Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based public-interest law firm, and an activist from Castle Coalition, an Institute endeavor, will visit those communities on Wednesday, a day after they talk to residents with similar concerns in Lakewood, a Cleveland suburb.

They want to teach residents how to organize and decide if the Institute will represent them. They also want to convey that, across the land, grass-roots efforts are stopping government agencies from claiming homes and businesses for purposes beyond municipal buildings and street improvements.

SOME REVERSALS

Across the country, lawyers and law professors say that courts are putting the brakes on what they style eminent domain abuse. Here are some significant decisions on use of the power to claim property for municipal buildings and garages, restaurants, hotels, shopping malls and office buildings: • April 2002: The Illinois Supreme Court struck down Southwestern Illinois Development Authority's attempts to exercise eminent domain by condemning a metal recycling company so that a neighboring racetrack could have more parking. • February 2002: The Connecticut Supreme Court sided with two immigrant sisters from Greece who were fighting the Stamford Urban Redevelopment Commission's use of eminent domain. The commission wanted to demolish their diner to make room for an 11-story building of stores and 316 apartments, most of them high-rent units, in the city's business district. • June 2001: U.S. District Judge Stephen J. Wilson said the city of Lancaster, Calif., violated the U.S. Constitution by agreeing to condemn a 99 Cents Only store so that another business could expand. According to the court, the city's use of eminent domain was "nothing more than the desire to achieve the naked transfer of property from one private party to another."

"We're coming and talking to a number of different property owners in Ohio (because) there's two things that have been changing in the world," said Dana Berliner, an Institute attorney. In 1998, she successfully stopped a New Jersey state agency from claiming an elderly woman's three-story rooming house to make room for one of Donald Trump's casino parking lots.

"The courts are starting to place some limits on municipalities. We're also seeing people successfully resisting. They're well-organized, really vocal. Both of these are really important national developments."

Thomas Bergman, a University of Cincinnati adjunct law professor who specializes in commercial real-estate transactions, also has noticed that courts are saying, "enough is enough."

"It takes time, (but) there seems to be a movement of the pendulum over a concern for this issue," he said.

Eminent domain is the government's right to claim private property for public use. But lawyers, academics and urban renewal experts said that, especially in the '90s, more city and state governments used the power to claim property and then sell it to developers and business owners.

In this region, the city of Cincinnati used eminent domain to acquire property for the Contemporary Arts Center's new downtown location. Newport council members voted in November to use eminent domain to buy out property owners in the Cote Brilliante neighborhood so the city could sell the land to a developer for the commercial portion of the $110 million Newport Promenade project.

And the threat lingers for anyone who lives in a desirable location. In Fairfield, a group of business owners who are upset about the city's plans to revitalize Ohio 4, the city's most traveled business strip, have banded to protect themselves from possible eminent domain proceedings.

But the Institute's visit is happening before Norwood and Evendale officials even get the chance to seriously pursue eminent domain proceedings.

In Norwood, developer Jeffrey Anderson has said that he might ask City Council to flex its eminent domain muscle if he cannot get 79 home and business owners to sell their properties. He and Miller-Valentine Group want to build Rookwood Exchange, a $125 million development of offices, apartments, condos, shops and restaurants.

He already has asked council members to pursue an urban renewal study to determine whether the neighborhood is blighted and, if so, to open the door to eminent domain proceedings. Council has decided to wait at least another month before considering that.

"What is the definition of blighted? Does that mean the houses are all falling apart? I don't think it does," Mr. Anderson said. "I don't think it's abuse at all. I would think there are better places to live especially if you got a chance to sell your house at a premium. (This) would offer an opportunity for the Rookwood area to maintain the leadership that it's had. If you don't progress, you go backwards."

In Evendale, council adopted an urban renewal study that deemed 130 properties on Reading Road blighted. The designation allows the village to claim the properties by eminent domain. Some property owners have protested, and so far the village hasn't moved ahead.

"If they want to bring people in from Washington, I don't see any harm in it. It's their fundamental right," Norwood Councilman Will DeLuca said. "It may be premature, but again, it's their right to organize and do what they feel that they have to do."

Bruce Hassel, who owns A to Z Discount Printing on Reading Road, will welcome the Institute's advice. He says Evendale's designation of blight devalued the company's property and left it vulnerable to eminent domain.

"What they're doing is they look at parcels and say, `We could have something better here and that gives us the right to transfer ownership from one person to another if we think we're going to like (the future use) better.'

"That's wrong," Mr. Hassel said. "They seem to be so set in their ways."

E-mail svela@enquirer.com

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