Property Rights and Wrongs

Ohio's attorney general, Marc Dann finds the governor's policy "inconsistent with Ohio law," and because of that policy he has refused to defend ODNR in its legal tiff with the Lakefront Group. "ODNR is a client; they changed their position against my advice," he told me. "I had no alternative but to hire them outside lawyers."

In June 2005 the US Supreme Court ruled that New London, Connecticut, could lawfully condemn private property for redevelopment (Kelo v. City of New London), a decision that provided property-rights propagandists with a rich guano deposit they're still mining. Immediately, anti-environmental-regulation bills in the guise of "anti-Kelo" legislation popped up in about two-thirds of the states. Only in Arizona did such legislation succeed.

A year before the Kelo decision, Oregon developers and extractive industries funded a property-rights campaign for "Measure 37." The ballot initiative, which won in a landslide, did away with what had been the nation's most progressive and effective regulations for protecting terrestrial and aquatic habitat, requires the state or community either to compensate people and industries who claim that environmental regulations have "devalued" their property or wave the regulations. Since there's no money to cover the outlandish claims (at least 7,500 so far), the regs get waived. People thought they were voting to protect private property and prevent "takings," but now private property is being damaged and devalued by massive development happening all around it. So distressed and incensed are Oregon voters at the ongoing rape of their state that they've prevailed on their lawmakers to pass a partial fix--Measure 49 for the November 2007 ballot.

"The so-called 'property-rights' movement is the singularly most misguided, historically inaccurate, fiscally irresponsible political movement of the last half century," writes Donovan Rypkema, who describes himself as "a crass, unrepentant, capitalist, real-estate, Republican type" and who works out of Washington, D.C. as an economic/development consultant. "Let me ask you, when was the last time you heard an owner say, 'Because of rezoning my land went from being worth $10,000 to being worth $100,000. But since it was the action of the Planning Commission and not some investment I made that increased the value, I'm writing a check to the city for $90,000?'"

It's an excellent question, one I'll now put to Ms. Cherry Pierce of Port Clinton, Ohio, who, like all lakefront owners, has benefited enormously from the sacrifices made by the rest of society in cleaning up the Great Lakes. Herewith, Pierce's complaint to the Ohio House about ODNR's insistence that she lease the public trust land she's developed along the Lake Erie shore: "I've already lost the sale on one property, and that property's value has plummeted. I'll soon lose another along with my house. Both are casualties of the policies of the current coastal management program."

Scenting vintage property-rights BS, the Ohio Environmental Council did some digging. It found that less than a month after Pierce's testimony she sold one of her properties for $2 million. It had just been appraised at $657,140.