Move over New London, Moscow is stealing your issue


Somewhere in Moscow there is a Ms. Kelo waiting for her moment in the sun. According to the Moscow Times:

If Mayor Yury Luzhkov gets his way, Muscovites will soon have little legal recourse when the city decides to kick them out of their homes to make way for new buildings, roads or anything else deemed to be in the public interest.

"City officials just want to simplify the procedure for seizing land and taking possession of it," said Sergei Mitrokhin, a member of the City Duma's Urban Development Commission and a senior member of the opposition Yabloko party.
City Hall wants to expand its power of eminent domain to allow for the construction of apartment buildings on land taken from private owners.

Viktor Damurchiyev, head of the city's Land Resources Department, said the need for the change was obvious. "Moscow is growing and there is not enough available land within the city limits," he said

The problem, critics say, is that vague language in current laws allows land to be taken not for the public good, but for private gain.

The law on relocation and eviction of homeowners, for example, allows the city to take private property for "construction."

...

The City Duma is currently considering a bill on land use and development that sets out new criteria for the taking of private property within the city. The bill allows the city to invoke eminent domain in order to fulfill major government programs and city contracts and simply for development, said Sergei Belyakov, a lawyer who advises [opposition party leader] Novitsky.

Unsatisfied with these new categories, City Hall wants to amend the bill to allow for the construction of apartment buildings and infrastructure in accordance with the city's General Plan.

...

City Hall also wants to formalize the process of "reserving" land in advance for future use.

"When building something, we won't be able to identify immediately all of the owners and developers whose interests could be affected," Alexander Kuzmin, head of the city's Architecture Committee, told Vechernyaya Moskva newspaper recently. "This is why we need to begin by reserving plots of land."

Critics counter that the city is simply trying to warn off developers and potential buyers.

"Reserving plots indicates to developers that they shouldn't bid for the [reserved] land because it belongs to the city," said Alexei Navalny, a lawyer with the Committee for the Defense of Muscovites, an organization that represents landowners in legal disputes with the city government.

Yabloko's Mitrokhin said the city's plan for reserving land was excessively vague, and that its only goal was to scare off competitors for choice parcels of real estate.

No matter what side of the Kelo debate you took, you would have to admit the Moscow system makes New London's look positively benign. The "reserve" powers are particularly pernicious. The affected owners are hampered in their ability to sell, and have no ability to force the City to pay compensation until the City makes the final decision to take title.
Posted: Monday - February 19, 2007 at 09:37 PM          

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