Tag: eminent domain

Higher Dread: A Chicago Public University Is Poised to Seize Private Property

by Hilary Gowins, posted in huffington post

Originally published on Huffington Post.

Bill Tong grew up on the northwest side of Chicago. He’s the grandson of Chinese immigrants and feels a deep sense of responsibility to preserve his family’s legacy.

That’s impossible now.

Bill has been fighting for months to stop a state university from seizing the property his family has owned since just after World War II — and he’s about to lose.

Bill’s story sounds like those of many others whose property has become the object of desire for government bureaucrats. When most people think of eminent domain, they probably imagine the government seizing a cornfield to build a highway. But eminent domain has become a real threat to individuals and families like the Tongs, who don’t have the deep pockets necessary to fight back.

Bill grew up in the building that Northeastern Illinois University, or NEIU, wants to take, which rests on a busy main street in a blue-collar neighborhood. Because racial discrimination kept their family out of area residential housing when they built the commercial property in 1954, the Tongs have always lived on the top floor. Now, Bill’s elderly mother lives in the upstairs apartment, the place where she raised a family. The family business, a restaurant called Tong’s Tea Garden, was downstairs. Today, the restaurant is called Hunan Wok and is owned by another Chinese immigrant, Maria Lin, who rents the space from the Tongs. Perhaps the most tragic irony of Bill’s situation is that he is an NEIU alumnus, and worked as a lab manager at NEIU’s Earth Science Department for about seven years, later serving as an adjunct lecturer at the school for several years.

But soon Bill and others who have called this stretch of the neighborhood their own will likely be cleared out by NEIU, which plans to bulldoze existing small businesses to make room for a developer to build apartment-style student housing. The development will also include private, retail shops on the ground floor, replacing businesses that have been on the block for decades.

The university refuses to change course on this plan, despite public outcry and the availability of more than 60 acres of undeveloped land on campus at its disposal.

NEIU President Sharon Hahs said this project is necessary because NEIU is the only Illinois state college without student housing. She claims the neighborhood is economically depressed, and this project will spur growth and revitalization. But the block is home to many small businesses, such as Caren Real Estate, Hunan Wok and Bryn Mawr Breakfast Club.

Ordinary people such as Bill Tong and his family can’t afford to fund lengthy court battles. The state can, however, and government is almost always able to wait out anyone who refuses to give up his property without a fight.

This isn’t just a Chicago problem.

Drought-crazed California is making moves to take 300 farms to build Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed water tunnels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

In Glendale, Colorado, the local government is trying to seize property where a local family has had a carpet business for 25 years so a developer can build an “entertainment district.”

At least seven property owners in St. Louis are facing down city officials who want to seize their land to make way for a supersized federal-government facility.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is making headlines with his plans to seize properties on Coney Island through eminent domain.

NEIU’s president and other proponents of the government’s prerogative to seize private property say they are well within their legal rights to pursue eminent domain. Under the law, they’re correct. But “legal” and “moral” aren’t always overlapping terms.

If the government can take land from Bill Tong and property owners in St. Louis and Colorado, the same thing can and will continue to happen to others across the country.

10 years after Kelo, how eminent domain is hurting business owners in Chicago

by Hilary Gowins, posted in op-ed

Op-ed posted on Watchdog.org.

It has been 10 years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Connecticut town could bulldoze residential property so a private group could build an office park.

After a lengthy legal fight and the destruction of the neighborhood, the land now sits abandoned and unused.

The ruling on this case, Kelo v. City of New London, caused an uproar: More than 40 states passed either constitutional amendments or statutes that have reformed eminent domain law to better protect property rights in the wake of the Kelo decision, according to the Institute for Justice.

But the corrupting power of eminent domain still rears its ugly head.

Today, a Chicago university is trying to bulldoze six properties so a private developer can build and operate dorms and retail stores.

In the northwest corner of Chicago, a state university president has moved to seize and bulldoze six small, family-owned businesses. In their place, Northeastern Illinois University President Sharon Hahs plans to hand over the land to a private real estate developer to build and operate student housing that will also include private, retail shops on the ground floor.

Hahs said this project is necessary because NEIU is the only state college without student housing. She claims the neighborhood is economically depressed, and this project would spur growth and revitalization. But the 3400 block of West Bryn Mawr Avenue is home to many small businesses, such as Caren Real Estate, Hunan Wok and the new Bryn Mawr Breakfast Club.

The owners of these businesses have invested in the neighborhood for years.

Bill Tong grew up in the property that now houses Hunan Wok restaurant. His grandfather, who immigrated to the U.S. from China, built the property in 1954. It became the Tong family’s home as well as its place of business, Tong’s Tea Garden. Bill and his sisters, Dolly and Betty, inherited the property from their late father in 2010. Their elderly mother, who still lives in the top-floor apartment, may be forced to leave the building they’ve called home for nearly six decades if NEIU gets its way.

“Being a Chinese-American, I knew that the ideal is for a son to preserve the accomplishments of his father and hopefully improve on them. I don’t stand a chance of that if the property is destroyed,” Tong said.

He isn’t alone.

Garrick Beil also grew up in the North Park neighborhood. His parents, Rosemary and Carl, were the children of German immigrants who came to Chicago from Germany in the 1920s. Rosemary worked as a school teacher and Carl was an architect and contractor, and to bolster their modest incomes they used their entire savings, plus loans from the bank and family members, to buy a dilapidated gas station at the corner of North Kimball Avenue and West Bryn Mawr Avenue. The Beils tore down that gas station and turned the property into two commercial spaces, both of which have been continuously occupied for nearly 40 years. Rosemary and her husband planned to rely on the income from these properties in their retirement. Instead, they are faced with a costly legal battle and an uncertain future.

As the story unfolding in Chicago’s North Park neighborhood shows, eminent domain often plays out as a modern David v. Goliath tale.

Small-business owners like Bill Tong and Garrick Beil can’t match the deep pockets of the state. Their only hope is that NEIU leaders have a change of heart, drop the eminent domain lawsuit and build on their own undeveloped land – approximately half of the college’s 67-acre campus is green space.

Tong and Beil’s story is a stark reminder that the threat of eminent domain remains just as real today for many as it did 10 years ago when the Supreme Court issued its Kelo decision.

NEIU’s President Hahs and other proponents of the government’s “right” to seize private property say they are well within their legal ability to pursue eminent domain — under the law, they’re correct. But legality doesn’t confer morality.

If the government can take land from Bill Tong, Garrick Beil and the homeowners in New London, Connecticut, the same thing can and will continue to happen to other property owners across the county.