by Tadman
David Benton wrote: ↑Tue Mar 31, 2020 4:52 am Yeah, that's the worst thing about not living in America, your working hard ,minding your own business,and next minute, the governnents taken all your asset s, and not paid for them.Very funny. It's a real problem. And it doesn't have to be all your assets. Our laws protect against the government taking even one penny let alone all your assets. Or restricting your assets to make them less-marketable.
If you want to read up on a very germane case, read Penn Central v. New York. In short, the landmarks commission made it hard to modify Grand Central Terminal. This seems good, until you realize that Penn Central was bankrupt and at the time, 1968, Amtrak and Conrail were not a sure thing. The public was served by Penn Central trains and the sale of station space funded commuter train operation. PC sued the city in order to remove landmark restrictions, which they claimed were a taking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Cent ... _York_City
Whether or not you find that case to be a taking, it is an important process that protects risk-taking, development, and our economy. Consider if the Penn Central example were downsized a bit. Your family owns a large department store in Dayton, Ohio. It's in a famous old limestone building. Amazon comes along and your revenues tank. You want to sell the property to a Chevy dealer or minor league baseball team and retire, maybe help pay for your kids college. The city says no, that it's a landmark, you must keep this building. Nobody wants your building, and you have to keep paying $10,000/year in property taxes plus a security guard $30,000/year. You get negative economic value, there is no job creation, and it hurts your child's ability to pay for college, which creates negative economic value there, too.
This balance is actually very important to the railroads. Landmarking became what it is when PC bulldozed NYP. Some guys want to landmark every signal bungalow, and that's too much. Other guys don't want any landmarks, and that might be too little.
They only take all your assets in places like China, Venezuela, or Cuba.
The new Acela: It's not Aveliable.