Institute for Justice to Release Report on Government Use of Private Property; Report Spotlights State-By-State Abuses of Eminent Domain

4/22/03

U.S. Newswire

Think your home is your castle? Or that the government can take your property only for a public use?

Think again.

A report to be released on Tuesday, April 22, 2003, documents that in just the past five years, the government has taken or threatened to take by force more than 10,000 homes, businesses, churches and private land not for a "public use" -- such as a police station or post office -- but for private economic development.

Among many examples, the report found that in the past five years, governments have:

-- Condemned a family's home so that the manager of a planned new golf course could live in it;
-- Evicted four elderly siblings from their home of the last 60 years for a private industrial park;
-- Removed a woman in her 80s from her home of 55 years to expand a sewer plant, but actually gave her home to an auto dealership.

"Public Power, Private Gain" is published by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice and is the first nationwide report ever to document how often government takes private property only to hand it over to private developers.

"Public Power, Private Gain" offers state-by-state statistics of private-use takings as well as summaries of these abuses of the power of eminent domain.

For more information, call John Kramer, the Institute for Justice's vice president for communications, at 202-955 1300 ext. 205, or in the evening/weekend at 703-527-8730. For a copy of the report, please visit
http://www.ij.org or http://www.castlecoalition.org.

 

from Press Conference Scheduled at NPC, April 22

News Advisory:

EVENT:
Report Spotlights State-By-State Abuses of Eminent Domain

TIME/DATE:
Tuesday, April 22
10 a.m.

PLACE:
National Press Club
First Amendment Lounge
14th & F Streets, NW
Washington, D.C.

CONTACT:
John Kramer, vice president for communications
Lisa Andaloro, director of communications
Institute for Justice, (202) 955-1300


 

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