Oh, for the good ol’ days when eminent domain was the government’s preferred method for taking private land.
9th July 2010
At least under this system, when government wanted your land, you knew.
Not so under many of today’s taking methods, the most insidious of which occur by tame-sounding names and friendly partnerships among government, special interest, and landowner. Take National Heritage Areas (NHAs), a voluntary program of the National Park Service that confers honorary titles on properties deemed historically significant and crucial to telling stories of America’s past. Forty-nine such areas currently exist, and more are in the works.
The enabling legislation also requires the NHA to have a management entity oversee creating and implementing a management plan for the site that the Secretary of the Interior must approve. And examples abound of these management boards—comprised of volunteer members of local government, conservation and preservation groups, U.S. Parks Department personnel, and other interested individuals—acting as a quasi-government body that pressures local land-use changes.
In not one of these instances were landowners deprived of their lands. That’s why supporters can claim NHAs do not take property rights. But only the most dishonest would insist that NHA designations do not lead to land-use changes from local governments. While one might opt out of inclusion in the NHA, how does one opt out of local zoning?