Face the State

House appropriations committee to hear condemnation bill today
Face The State Staff Report

DENVER - In response to mounting criticism over its handling of proposed condemnations for its light rail expansion, officials at Denver's Regional Transportation District are now striking back in an effort to garner public support. The move, property rights advocates allege, is deceptive.

RTD's planned western rail corridorRTD

In a letter dated March 7, posted on the FasTracks Web site, RTD Chairman Lee Kemp writes, “Recently, some facts have gotten muddied about how RTD is pursuing property acquisitions under the eminent domain process. I would like to stress that RTD follows all applicable federal regulations and state laws for our property acquisition.” Kemp lists the specific state and federal statutes he says his agency is following.

RTD has come under attack in recent months by Denver-area property owners and a bipartisan coalition of state legislators who allege that agency officials are abusing their eminent domain powers to acquire property for the purpose of private development. Kemp says such accusations are “simply not true.”

But Bob Hoban, a Denver land use attorney adamantly disagrees, calling Kemp’s letter “inaccurate at best.” Hoban currently represents multiple clients facing condemnation for RTD’s West Corridor expansion project. “There are thousands of pages of documents, paid for by RTD, that indicate RTD is in the development business and that it is focused on transit-oriented development and the revenue it can generate,” he told Face The State.

According to Kemp, at issue is development of “ancillary” uses of the property surrounding the actual light rail station sites.

At a Monday evening town hall meeting hosted by the Independence Institute’s Property Rights Project in Golden, one of Hoban’s clients, Galen Foster, a Lakewood business owner, talked about the “love affair” he and his wife had created with their small business, a window-tinting shop located at the corner of Wadsworth Boulevard and 14th Avenue in Lakewood. RTD says it wants Foster’s property to build a 1,000-car transit garage where his business currently stands. Hoban and Foster maintain that the real purpose for the condemnation is to generate revenue for RTD by turning the corner into a mixed-use high rise development.

Legislators have responded to the concerns of Foster and others by introducing a bill that would prohibit RTD from transferring private property to another private owner for the purpose of any development not directly related to transit-related improvements and changes.

Sponsored by Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park, Rep. Ken Summers, R-Lakewood, and Sen. Lois Tochtrop, D-Thorton, House Bill 1278 is currently working its way through the legislature, and reflects a larger commitment by the three lawmakers to fight eminent domain abuse. The House Appropriations Committee is expected to hear the bill this morning at 7:15.

“Economic development is not a good enough reason for government to take private property from citizens,” White told the Rocky Mountain News. White and Tochtrop were lead proponents of a series of reforms in 2006 that led to tighter restrictions on urban renewal-related condemnation projects.

At a January hearing, RTD General Manager Cal Marsella pledged to be “as fair and equitable to you as I can.” Still, RTD officials maintain that they are entitled to pursue commercial redevelopment at stations if local zoning allows for it. In a January 24 Rocky article, Marsella said such private partnerships can save taxpayers money. Hoban maintains that his clients aren’t concerned about outsourcing transit-related needs, such as a parking garage, but rather object to non-related private development projects on land taken solely for the purpose of light rail expansion.

Foster maintains that when he approached RTD officials about the prospect of working with them to develop his property into another use, he was told to “put in a bid” after the property is condemned.