Some Times the Little Guys Win

The area where I live has been fighting a proposed dam since December and the developer finally gave up.

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_18568758

They tried to sneak it through by giving as little notification as possible but one neighbor noticed a small sign hidden behind a bush (I am not kidding) and checked it out. As we started learning about it it was pretty scary. My house was going to be 300 yards away and 100 feet below the base of a 200 foot high dam.

We dug up the history and geology of the site and fought it at many county meetings. If it would have failed it would have killed 100's so it got more notice than the county critters were used to. It was quite an education in local politics.

Steve

Just a recommendation. I know you love your home. But something tells me, these guys won't stop. You won't get anywhere near what your house is worth from eminent domain payout. There is big money here and they never rest.

Southern Delivery System is a big pipeline going through Pueblo West from the Pueblo Reservoir. Quite a few homes were condemned under eminent domain. Lots of people lost property rights as a 66 inch pipeline goes through their backyards. Compensation packages handed out seemed quite unfair as far as real prices for peoples property i.e. tantamount to theft! Water is going to Colorado Springs and Aurora. Maybe they thought they were going to store water from SDS I dunno. The rich get richer and the little guy gets a kick in the teeth!
(Luckily my property is 400 yard away from the proposed route.)

Sometimes I wonder if an armed revolt wouldn't be such a bad thing...just sayin...ya know.

I would argue the SDS is one of the very few eminent domain takings that still falls within the original intent of eminent domain.

The way to solve the problem is to require the government to pay 1.5 times the fair market value of the property before the ED project was announced. That and eliminating "blight" and "increased tax revenue" as reasons for ED. It should be ONLY for large scale public works projects like it was originally intended.

That way only truly important projects would go forward with ED and property owners wouldn't get screwed.

And sometimes not. Denver Water is going ahead with plans to double (if not triple) the size of Gross Reservoir. Why? Some developer in Arvada wants to develop between Golden and Arvada. [Rant1]

The general belief was that the water was going to come from a a reservoir west of the Springs and they would just condemn the land from there along I-25 and then up to the dam.

Eminent domain is over used and the people along the pipeline would have been unhappy. We found at least 6 or more companies being formed to handle this. It would have been worse for me. They weren't going to take my land so I wouldn't have gotten a dime. I would have had to buy flood insurance and the cheap construction would have led to seepage. Seepage kills septic systems. With no septic system and a dam looming overhead my house value would have been zero. The shitbird from Penley actually stood up at a meeting and said none of these would have been responsibilities for his group.

I know this isn't necessarily the end. In the current market, developing for housing doesn't make much sense so who knows what will happen next?

Steve

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CrufflerSteve

The area where I live has been fighting a proposed dam since December and the developer finally gave up.

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_18568758

They tried to sneak it through by giving as little notification as possible but one neighbor noticed a small sign hidden behind a bush (I am not kidding) and checked it out. As we started learning about it it was pretty scary. My house was going to be 300 yards away and 100 feet below the base of a 200 foot high dam.

We dug up the history and geology of the site and fought it at many county meetings. If it would have failed it would have killed 100's so it got more notice than the county critters were used to. It was quite an education in local politics.

Steve

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Good for you. Hopefully that's the end of it. Keep an eye out.

I agree with Zundfolge