Eminent Domain In Colorado
RTD wants to steal land from private citizens for a maintenance depot for busses using taxpayer money.
A real estate investment group that includes Denver Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan could sack RTD’s effort to locate a new bus maintenance facility near the Mousetrap.
Ascendant Development paid $17.1 million this year when it purchased the 44-acre property at the southwest corner of the Interstate 25/Interstate 70 junction from the Denver Newspaper Agency.
The Regional Transportation District recently said it hoped to buy the property from Ascendant, but RTD said if a deal couldn’t be worked out, it could take the land by eminent domain and pay “fair market value.”
RTD has been battered by bad publicity over plans to use eminent domain for FasTracks rail lines, and the agency might not want to find itself in the position of taking land owned in part by Shanahan.
But who says what fair market value is? And this is stopping the project of a government agency that I think is not representing its citizens.
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