Street corner scene from Tremont Street, in Boston, Massachusetts.

One of the greatest ironies of many eminent-domain takings is that the supposed public benefits too often do not flow to the communities suffering the human and economic costs associated with displacement of residents and businesses. Without effective community-based planning, there is a real risk that redevelopment will fail to serve the long-term needs of both the targeted community and the city at large.

James J. Kelly, Jr., in his article “Taming Eminent Domain,” argues for adoption of two new forms of residency protection: a Homestead Community Consent (HCC) requirement and a Community Residency Entitlement (CRE). While I agree with the underlying goals of community participation and approval, as well as fair compensation for displaced residents, I believe meaningful community participation requires a more comprehensive approach to assessing community needs, and a more focused, systematic process for obtaining community input, than Kelly’s proposals guarantee. An approval vote requirement, by itself, does not offer a structured framework for decision making, with clear criteria to evaluate community benefits and costs.

Structural economic and political factors often cause municipalities’ goals to be at odds with those of local communities. Municipalities have a built-in incentive to focus economic development efforts in poor neighborhoods, because land costs are relatively low and many residents lack the financial resources or the legal standing to bring an effective challenge in court. Even well-meaning decision makers may fail to perceive the potential of low-income communities—skewing the calculus of opportunity and cost associated with the destruction of homes, businesses, and neighborhoods. The perception that there is nothing there worth preserving, or that local residents lack the sophistication to engage in a complex planning process, may also deter public decision makers from working closely with local stakeholders to evaluate projects in the context of community needs. Yet intensive engagement by residents and local business owners is essential, not only to an effective planning process, but also to assure that decision making is well informed.

Eminent Domain in a Community Context

The Dudley neighborhood in the Roxbury/North Dorchester section of Boston is a vibrant community, home to numerous community-based organizations (CBOs), as well as a host of diverse cultural, civic, and educational institutions. Nevertheless, this neighborhood continues to struggle with the legacy of decades of redlining and public disinvestment, as well as widespread destruction through arson of residential and commercial structures in the 1960s and 1970s. As recently as 2000, as many as 1,000 parcels of land in Roxbury still lay vacant—more than 20 percent of the total area. At the same time, housing costs skyrocketed, nearly doubling between 1995 and 2001. The high proportion of extremely low-income households presents a pressing need for more affordable housing options.

Eminent domain has been used effectively in Dudley as a tool to eliminate blight and increase affordable housing stock by two very different organizations: Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), a community group, and the Boston Housing Authority (BHA). A large urban housing authority and a CBO typically have little in common. Yet the takings by these entities share several elements that offer the key to effective use of eminent domain to promote community wellbeing.

DSNI has been a powerful force in Roxbury and neighboring North Dorchester since its formation in 1984. Initially, residents organized to protest city plans for a mixed-use redevelopment proposal to build office towers and hotels, and mixed-income housing. Having successfully opposed top-down redevelopment proposals that threatened to result in displacement and gentrification, DSNI turned to redevelopment planning grounded in community needs and aspirations. Through an intensive process of community engagement, with the help of planning consultants offering technical expertise, DSNI developed “The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative Revitalization Plan: A Comprehensive Community Controlled Strategy.” The city’s formal adoption of this plan as the blueprint for change in the Dudley neighborhood laid the groundwork for future planning efforts, including the 2004 Roxbury Strategic Master Plan, a master plan for the broader Roxbury community.

In part, DSNI’s success is attributable to its governance structure, which assures that decisions reflect a broad range of individual and community interests. Early on, residents insisted on a broad mandate for community representation; DSNI by-laws require that an equal number of directors represent each of the neighborhood’s largest racial and ethnic groups, and also reserve seats for representatives of key organizations and agencies providing services and products to DSNI’s core geographic area of operations.