Kelo incident didn’t age well

In the betrayal that was Kelo, the government defended its tyranny by claiming that the ends justified the means.
Now, that argument echoes with hollow mockery.

“Kelo” is the shorthand name given to the infamous incident in which the city of New London, Conn., seized by eminent domain a swath of middle- to lower-income houses and turned the property over to a private developer. As the last homeowner to give in, Susette Kelo filed suit; her case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the city’s taking of her property was legal.
Eminent domain had always been defined as the necessary taking of private property for the public good. In the past “the public good” had meant new roads or schools, a trade of private property for public infrastructure.

That’s not what happened in New London. City officials took private property from the non-wealthy and handed it over to the wealthy: drugmaker Pfizer, the city’s major employer, which promised to expand into a new research center on the property, complete with hotel facilities, residential space and even a new state park. The rationale: These projects would bring in more tax revenue and therefore were for the public’s benefit.
“We just got so sick of hearing that we were supposed to sacrifice for the greater good,” Matthew Dery told the Associated Press. “As it turns out, there was no greater good.”
Now, four years after the high court ruling, much of the property still remains undeveloped — with nothing to replace the razed home except weeds and debris.

And now, Pfizer says it is closing its existing site and moving to another city. It will not complete the plan that led to the homeowners’ forced loss of property.
Defenders of the land-taking say that some infrastructure has been developed, such as a 16-acre park. And they say that the land is ready and waiting for new projects, should they come along.
They also say that the collapse of the plan really isn’t anybody’s fault — not the city’s, not Pfizer’s. It’s the result of the stalled economy.

But that’s rather the point. The fact that Pfizer couldn’t pull off the development without public help should have been a warning sign to the city.
It’s not in the public interest for government to involve itself in risky business ventures. But on sheer speculation, as egregious as anything dished up by Freddie Mac, the city of New London forced homeowners to abandon their homes and community on the unfounded hopes of something bigger and better. 
Events have now proved that gamble was a disaster.
But making the right choice should not have required even the warning that the project might not have been viable, or a premonition that the economy would tank.

All that should have been necessary was a fair application of the law of eminent domain as traditionally understood: the taking of private property only when necessary and only for public, not private, use.
If there is any silver lining to the cloud it is this: The Kelo case was so outrageous that it inspired many states, including Virginia, to write stronger safeguards into the law. While the people of New London look at their empty lots and loss of tax revenue, we at least have protections.