Quote:
Originally Posted by exit2lef
I'm open to most of your arguments, but this is one is a stretch for me. Eminent domain is an abrogation of private property rights that should be reserved only for the most exceptional circumstances in which no viable alternative method exists to address an essential public need. Classic examples would be a bridge that must be placed at a particular place or an airport runway that has to be extended for safety reasons.
An academic building, on the other hand, could be built elsewhere or redesigned to work around the house and the city's silly open space requirement. What's interesting here is that preservationists are often seen as a threat to private property rights when they try to block demolitions, but in this case private property rights are being asserted to leave a building standing rather than tearing it down.
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I'm curious as to why airports and bridges are exceptions to sacred property rights and building a medical school isn't. I'm not saying medical schools are sacred (or, frankly, that anything should be sacred). We can put schools, bridges and airports where we choose to, and property owners need to make decisions based on those larger community choices. If property owners (like me) inform ourselves about the goings on, then it's all about assuming risks. Arizona needs doctors and nurses badly, and ASU is filling a gap. If this guy wants to paint himself as some sort of hero, that's fine, but every citizen I see at zoning meetings railing against change also cast themselves as some sort of Holy David against an evil Goliath. That lazy storyline is part of how the US became unable to build enough housing.
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