Eminent domain's eminent harm

Government's latest land grab involves a north St. Louis, Mo., neighborhood that's being eyed by a federal agency for a $1.6 billion headquarters building that might not even be built there.

The 99-acre site is in the running with another location for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a combat support/intelligence organization now based south of the downtown. The city last year passed a resolution allowing the use of eminent domain against 19 property owners.

Care to guess what happened to property values once in the cross hairs of eminent domain?

City officials have been offering some residents $20,000 to $30,000 for their properties, The Daily Signal reports. Comparable homes in the city would cost between $300,000 and $400,000, says John Wright, a policy researcher at the free market Show Me Institute.

As it is, eminent domain's looming shadow has scotched plans for a grocery store in the neighborhood.

There are occasions when government can facilitate development. But where is government's “compelling interest” to claim prime private property when there's a 182-acre site available next to an Air Force base?

Eminent domain should to be the government's last recourse, not leverage that pries loose properties while devastating land values in the process.