Continued...

In early 2008, The Reinvestment Fund, a Philadelphia nonprofit working with EBDI, will be rehabilitating the first of at least 40 new homes in Middle East. When they are completed, displaced Middle East homeowners will be able to own them in the same way they owned their previous homes. “We are overjoyed that this new neighborhood will now include truly affordable homeownership opportunities, as well as low-cost rental properties,” says Donald Gresham, chair of the SMEAC board, himself a displaced homeowner.

The residents of Middle East have had to fight for the right to plan the redevelopment of their community. Even as the architectural drawings produced by that planning process showed beautiful new houses replacing blocks of deteriorated shells, they had to continue their struggle to secure the right to live in those new homes. Fundamental rights such as these should not depend on the political power or determination of the residents to win them. If eminent domain is ever to play its essential role in a just redevelopment of a severely deteriorated urban neighborhood, then the rights of residents to plan the redevelopment and remain in the redeveloped community must be guaranteed by law.

Two New Forms of Residency Protection

Two complementary statutory reforms are needed to enhance the protection of residents from eminent domain in urban redevelopment. For revitalization projects, these two protections together would create a land-acquisition, redevelopment, and relocation process that is not only workable but also genuinely constructive of community. First, resident landowners should not be forced from their homes by eminent domain until they have approved the redevelopment plan for their neighborhood. This Homestead Community Consent requirement would best be enacted as an amendment to redevelopment-planning requirements in the state statutes that give both state and local redevelopment authorities their power of eminent domain. In the case of Middle East, the Maryland statute that allowed Baltimore City to create EBDI and give it the power to take residents’ homes would be amended to require that the redevelopment plans of authorities like EBDI be subjected to the approval of affected homeowners.

In order to assure residents that they are planning a community for themselves and their long-time neighbors as well as new community members, a second legal reform should be enacted to support Homestead Community Consent. The U.S. Congress should amend the federal statute known as the Uniform Relocation and Real Properties Acquisition Policies Act of 1970 (“Uniform Relocation Act” or “URA”) to guarantee long-term residents of redevelopment areas the right to comparable replacement housing, not just in the metropolitan region, but in the new development. This federal Community Residency Entitlement, like its Homestead Community Consent state law counterpart, would apply only to redevelopment projects that use eminent domain to displace residents. It would not affect traditional invocations of eminent domain for core public needs such as the construction of highways or government office buildings.

Homestead Community Consent

In restoring community autonomy without paralyzing the decision-making process, the Homestead Community Consent reform would foster a genuine dialogue between redevelopment officials and resident stakeholders. Although contemporary planners are steeped in group-facilitation techniques to make community participation in planning feasible, no amount of openness in communication style can create decision-making power where none exists. In order for resident planners to buy in, their approval must have more than mere public-relations value. It must be determinative of the plan’s authorization. Even if their sanction is not the only one needed, residents should not be forced to yield their individual homes until they themselves have envisioned and ratified the future of their neighborhood.

Although the approval vote requirement would give homeowners unusual authority, the discussion between officials and residents would not necessarily be one-way. While the homestead community would collectively control land resources vital to the project, the redevelopment officials would presumably control where and how to spend the financial subsidies for any project. If community residents were completely happy with their neighborhood’s present condition, they might, with one voice, tell the experts to go spend their money elsewhere. Indeed, a fundamentally healthy neighborhood may not need the use of eminent domain to bring about its revitalization. By adopting the Homestead Community Consent reform, state and local governments would eliminate the need to have a redevelopment agency justify the use of eminent domain by labeling a community as “blighted.” Homeowners in a severely distressed neighborhood will know better than anyone how much help their community needs. If planners approach them in the spirit of, and a legally binding commitment to, genuine partnership, these survivors will get to work on reconnecting their neighborhood to the city around it.