Here’s what we’re reading on this blustery Friday:
- “Duck given legal tool for access during beach nourishment” reads the headline in Coastal News Today, referencing how the North Carolina legislature recently delegated the power of eminent domain. But before you think that eminent domain abuse has gone too far, it’s the Town of Duck, NC.
- Next, up, “New York’s smallest piece of private land,” about a very small slice (500 square inches) of private property in Greenwich Village. Wonder what the rent on that place would be?
- From the New York Times, the final chapter in the Vera Coking story out of Atlantic City, NJ, “Luster Lost, Atlantic City Home Is Auctioned for $530,000.” Ms. Coking is the homeowner who dared say “no” to Donald Trump when he got the government to try and use eminent domain to take her home for a parking lot for his adjacent casino/hotel. She won in the courts, and now lives in California, and after unsuccessfully trying to sell the home for a number of years, it went to auction. Her story is also somewhat of a mirror of Atlantic City’s recent troubles, as whatever gloss that place had has definitely worn off.
- “Silver bullet or long shot? ‘Takings challenges to drilling regs face iffy fate” (“New Yorkers expected to reap a profit on natural gas buried in the Marcellus Shale. Government officials got in the way, and now landowners want compensation.”). Fracking and takings law — what could go wrong?
- More on the subject from the Wall Street Journal, “Anti-Fracking Laws vs. Property Rights” (“The growing efforts by state and local governments to stop hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking,’ to extract natural gas could end up in the Supreme Court. These efforts may unconstitutionally limit property owners’ ability to profit from their mineral rights.”).
- “Pipelines and Power Lines,” or, what is a “common carrier” in the world of crude oil transportation.