The U.S. Supreme Court recently found that the city's original seizure of private property was constitutional under the principal of eminent domain, and now New London is claiming that the affected homeowners were living on city land for the duration of the lawsuit and owe back rent.
It's a new definition of chutzpah: Confiscate land and charge back rent for the years the owners fought confiscation. In some cases, their debt could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The hard rains started falling that year, when Matt Dery and his neighbors in Fort Trumbull learned that the city planned to replace their homes with a hotel, a conference center, offices and upscale housing that would complement the adjoining Pfizer Inc. research facility.
The New London Development Corp... is offering residents the market rate as it was in 2000, as state law requires. That rate pales in comparison to what the units are now worth, owing largely to the relentless housing bubble that has yet to burst.
"I can't replace what I have in this market for three times [the 2000 assessment]," says [Matt] Dery, 48…In June 2004, NLDC sent the seven affected residents a letter indicating that after the completion of the case, the city would expect to receive retroactive "use and occupancy" payments (also known as "rent") from the residents.
In the letter, lawyers argued that because the takeover took place in 2000, the residents had been living on city property for nearly five years, and would therefore owe rent for the duration of their stay at the close of the trial. Any money made from tenants--some residents' only form of income--would also have to be paid to the city.
Friday, August 19, 2005
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1 comment:
I would immediately declare bankruptcy, start using my kitchen to cook meth, and store toxic waste in leaking barrels in the basement. Then head off to Mexico with the money I made maxing out credit cards.
At least then the City would have to pay some hefty clean-up bills.
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