Corrupt Officials in Brentwood, MO Using Eminent Domain to Destroy Businesses

All to replace those businesses with another set of buildings proposed by a developer which may eventually result in greater tax receipts. That is the ostensible excuse, anyway.

Three perfectly maintained buildings and businesses are being labeled as “blighted” by the City of Brentwood, Missouri, all so officials can steal their properties to give to someone else.

https://ij.org/case/brentwood-blight/

Many of the businesses that line Manchester Road in Brentwood, Missouri have been serving the community for decades. But now, the city is threatening to use its eminent domain power to force these well-loved businesses to close shop so a private developer can make way for new businesses—all in the name of economic development. The city claims the entire Manchester Corridor is “blighted,” a convenient label it can use to justify taking property by eminent domain.

But these properties are not blighted in any sense of the term. They are well maintained, and the businesses provide valuable services to customers in the St. Louis area. None of them have received warnings for the condition of their properties. No business should lose its property just because the government wants to replace it with other, more favored businesses.

The owners of a fly-fishing shop, a meal prep business, and a dance studio are now teaming up with the Institute for Justice to challenge the baseless blight designations and the proposed takings.

In 2005, after decades of this kind of abuse, the Supreme Court ruled that government cannot just take someone’s private property to give it to another private enterprise. Eminent Domain can only be used when, say, a new public highway needs to be built and some private property is in the way and has to be bought from the private owners.

The 2005 Kelo decision prohibits Brentwood from doing exactly what it is doing to these businesses. City officials are charging ahead, anyway. One has to wonder why a government official is driven to steal successful businesses from their owners. What might be in it for the officials? It’s a good question.

After the Kelo decision, the Institute for Justice convinced most States to revise their laws to prevent this kind of abuse. Missouri is one of those States.

But the “clever” officials in Brentwood believe they have found a way around that clear law preventing them from just taking these businesses away from their owners. They are claiming that perfectly maintained buildings hosting successful businesses are “blighted,” which designation then gives them the right to destroy perfectly healthy stores.

Do these business look “blighted” to you?

This kind of disgraceful, petty abuse of Americans’ freedoms is what the Institute for Justice fights against every day. They are purely donation-funded. Consider writing them a check today - for all you know, the next target of some nasty public official may be you.

I hope the officials in Brentwood wake up to logic, decency and the law and stop harassing the fine, hardworking Americans who have built these businesses and the landlords who have built, improved and maintained these buildings.