By Howard Fischer
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES
PHOENIX - The House approved two far-reaching measures Wednesday designed to trim the rights of cities and counties over private property.
One measure, HB 2308, eliminates the ability of city councils to condemn property for the purpose of new retail projects. Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, R-Gilbert, said it is wrong for the city to seize someone's home or business solely to turn it over to someone else to develop.
The other, HB 2411, specifies that if cities and counties take any action that diminishes property values by at least 25 percent, the landowner is entitled to compensation. Rep. Marian McClure, R-Tucson, said governments must consider the financial repercussions to residents of changes like new zoning regulations. Both bills need final House approval before going to the Senate.
At the heart of both issues is the tension between government's acting for the benefit of the community versus the right of individual property owners.
Farnsworth's bill does not interfere with the use of "eminent domain" powers to condemn land for municipal purposes. But it bars taking the land for a redevelopment project that will end up in someone else's hands.
That's what is happening in Mesa, where the city wants to take Randy Bailey's brake shop on Main Street so a new drugstore can move in. City officials say that is part of a downtown redevelopment project.
Rep. Lucy Mason, R-Prescott, said the power to sell - or refuse to sell - should be left up to the landowner.
Rep. Tom Prezelski, D-Tucson, said Tucson destroyed its oldest neighborhood to construct the Convention Center, kicking out people "who had been there for generations for the sake of people who just moved here two weeks ago from Michigan."
But Rep. Meg Burton Cahill, D-Tempe, said her city used eminent domain to create a revitalized business district.