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Brockton wants to fill its tallest building, which has for decades been home to a local furniture store, with affordable apartments.
Waltham has found what it thinks is the perfect 46-acre site for its new high school. The only problem is that it just happens to have been owned by a religious order for the past 100 years.
And in Hopedale, a local businessman who spent years buying up a long-vacant mill complex downtown has filed suit against the town, accusing officials of plotting to seize his property and cut him out of plans to redevelop the site into new homes, shops and restaurants.
Not alone, Brockton, Waltham and Hopedale are just three of the more prominent examples of local cities and towns across the state flexing their eminent domain powers to take property and clear the way for new development and new schools.
New schools, homes and affordable apartments are all laudable goals. But the way local cities and towns are going about it – seizing property from unwilling owners through eminent domain – should make even the staunchest supporters of progress and economic development think twice.
Eminent domain confers both an awesome power and a grave responsibility on local communities. Given the high stakes, it should be used rarely and only as a last resort. Otherwise, it’s not too hard to imagine how local officials might be tempted to use their powers to seize property simply because they want to clear out a quirky local business owner or believe they truly know what’s the best use for someone else’s property, whether it’s a prominent downtown building or a bucolic campus.
Officials’ Suspect Reasoning
Some local officials’ reasons for deploying the “nuclear option” of eminent domain, and the number of cases out there, should trigger warning lights.
In Brockton, city officials moved ahead and seized the city’s tallest building, the 8-story Furniture Building, even though the owner, John Monem, was on board with plans to convert it into affordable housing.
Monem had a falling-out with the city’s preferred developer and found a Boston-based developer to replace him. Instead, the city went ahead and took ownership of the building, with plans to proceed with Monem’s erstwhile business partner.
“After all this work, they give it to someone else,” Monem said. “They are not afraid to be a thief.”
In Waltham, city officials are now battling in court over their plans to seize the 47-acre spiritual retreat center owned by the Stigmatine Fathers and Brothers, a Catholic order. Supporters say it has helped thousands of people over the years.
The “seller” in this case is no more thrilled at the prospect of parting with their beloved campus than Monem is with the Furniture Building in downtown Brockton. While the religious order says it understands the need for a new high school, its property is not the place to put it.
“Mayor [Jeanette McCarthy’s] efforts to acquire the Stigmatine property for the high school have been coercive and relentless,” reads a statement on the order’s website. “We just don’t believe the city should be able to end our existence here in Waltham because it covets our land for its own use.”
In Hopedale, Philip Shwachman, the owner of the 77-acre Draper mill complex, recently filed suit against the town in a bid to head off what he claims is a budding attempt to seize his property through eminent domain.
Apparently triggering Shwachman’s concerns was Hopedale’s rollout of an urban renewal plan that focused completely on his property and its 1 million square feet of old industrial buildings. Tactless and somewhat mystifying comments by the town that Shwachman might just want to donate the whole thing to the town and get a negative value off his books haven’t helped either.
Scott Van Voorhis
A Worrying Trend
These aren’t isolated incidents. Other cities and towns are also throwing around their powers of eminent domain in concerning ways.
Brookline sparked a fierce backlash last year when it began talking about seizing a prominent chunk of Pine Manor’s front lawn for a new school.
In Worcester, city officials say they will consider using eminent domain to take seven different properties in the path of plans for a new minor league ballpark if sales negotiations with the owners fall through. For those owners, the looming threat of eminent domain is a bit like negotiating with a gun to their heads.
And in Quincy, which has spent years redeveloping its downtown, city officials have mulled seizing buildings with empty storefronts.
To be fair, downtown redevelopment is never easy, especially in older cities where key properties may be sitting run-down or half-used, thwarting efforts to revive stagnant business districts. Nor it is easy, in densely packed Greater Boston, to find available land on which to build new schools and other public amenities.
However, it’s one thing to use eminent domain to take over an empty building owned by an absentee landlord who has no interest in keeping it up or selling it. Many older downtowns have one or two of those.
But it’s a very different thing to seize the property of a business owner, religious order or college, where the owners are very much in the picture and passionately attached to their property.
In times like these patience and negotiation are called for, not the bullying use of eminent domain.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
