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A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

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Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#211

Post by mr_00ff00 »

order-matters wrote: post #189
jjk166 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't B have standing? They presumably are residents of and taxpayers to city C, and they face property devaluation stemming from nearby municipal actions.

presumably because it's not their land and if A wanted to build a data center on it to begin with then B could do nothing about it. the key issue is C doing things that it's taxpayers dont want done. in this case though taxpayer money is not being spent, the property is being sold which means money is being generated for the taxpayers, and the new property owner is ultimately A never had the authority to contract the…

This is well thought out and a good point, it does feel like though there should be some “special case” for donating land to keep for public use as a park.

You are right though, how long can someone who doesn’t own that land, have authority on how it is used.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#212

Post by metalman »

we have a causway built by a private family, that then turned into a beach through natural forces, a HUGE sand beach with waves on one side, and a sheltered shallow bay on the other, which was used as private access to a string of small islands, which was donated to the province, with certain conditions, which include that if the conditions are broken, it returns to the family, one condition is that the beach remains open for anyone to drive and park on. And time and time again groups form to try and gain controll of this several mile long hard sand beach, only to discover what a good contract that thousands of people know about is worth.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#213

Post by tyrust »

wagwang wrote: post #102
b3ing wrote: post #89

Reminds me a teacher lived thriftily in life and donated 2 or 3 million to a school in his will when he died. The school used it to buy a state of the art high school football scoreboard.

Donating money is just not it. It's so easy to spend money you didn't work hard to make yourself. If you wanna do good, figure out how to deploy the resources to your cause.

There are plenty of highly effective charities.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#214

Post by phkahler »

cameldrv wrote: post #126

Notwithstanding the merits of this case, I'm against the concept of unlimited time deed restrictions on property. Dead people should not be able to decide what living people can do with land or any other property indefinitely. That's why we have things like the rule against perpetuities, and requirements that charitable foundations spend a certain percentage of their assets every year. Some of these ideas strongly ca…

>> Notwithstanding the merits of this case, I'm against the concept of unlimited time deed restrictions on property. Dead people should not be able to decide what living people can do with land or any other property indefinitely.

I used to disagree with you, but your stance is the only one that makes sense. The way you control property use is through ownership.

In this case the original family wanted it to be used as a park, but they didn't want to set up an entity to own and maintain the park so they tried to conditionally donate it to the city. And that worked for a long time. The weird thing is that the city agreed to this, and the state apparently honored the deed restriction and considered it valid, but now it can just be thrown out?

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#215

Post by db48x »

mr_00ff00 wrote: post #211
order-matters wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

presumably because it's not their land and if A wanted to build a data center on it to begin with then B could do nothing about it. the key issue is C doing things that it's taxpayers dont want done. in this case though taxpayer money is not being spent, the property is being sold which means money is being generated for the taxpayers, and the new property owner is ultimately A never had the authority to contract the…

This is well thought out and a good point, it does feel like though there should be some “special case” for donating land to keep for public use as a park. You are right though, how long can someone who doesn’t own that land, have authority on how it is used.

If you want a park, then build a park. Don’t give away the land and hope someone else builds a park.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#216

Post by ip26 »

order-matters wrote: post #189
jjk166 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't B have standing? They presumably are residents of and taxpayers to city C, and they face property devaluation stemming from nearby municipal actions.

presumably because it's not their land and if A wanted to build a data center on it to begin with then B could do nothing about it. the key issue is C doing things that it's taxpayers dont want done. in this case though taxpayer money is not being spent, the property is being sold which means money is being generated for the taxpayers, and the new property owner is ultimately A never had the authority to contract the…

A never had the authority to contract the land as a park indefinitely ... once C owns it they own it

That's not what a deed restriction is.

are you stuck with passing that obligation forward

Generally yes. Which is why the deed restriction can affect the market value of the property.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#217

Post by jfengel »

tptacek wrote: post #162
mrhottakes wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a single precedent; standing and jurisdiction are like 70% of civil procedure in law school. This page is a good jumping off point: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/standing

Right, standing seems like a series of technicalities until you realize it's fundamentally what keeps judges from becoming philosopher-kings that control the entire rest of the government: judges only exercise power in actual cases and controversies between formally-identified parties.

I find that standing makes judges philosopher-kings in collusion with the rest of the government. If they don't like the plaintiff, they reject them for not having "standing". If they do like the plaintiff, they'll find standing, no matter how thin a connection they have to rely on for it.

For example, the Supreme Court case where they found standing for somebody to refuse to make a same-sex wedding web site, even though nobody had actually asked for one and the person didn't even make wedding web sites. (303 Creative v Elenis)

There was no actual case. The Court invented one because they wanted the opportunity to overturn a state law, and they invented it out of whole cloth.

As opposed to the case where citizens are having their votes essentially erased because of district boundaries explicitly designed to target them. They lack standing to sue over it.

I have zero faith in "standing" as anything other than a tool for picking and choosing on ideological grounds, without having to address any facts of the matter.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#218

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #157
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully just being a resident of a city doesn’t give you standing to sue over any decision that has a tenuous adverse effect on you. I mean if that holds why shouldn’t visitors who might one day hope to visit the given park have standing to sue?

> just being a resident of a city doesn’t give you standing to sue over any decision that has a tenuous adverse effect on you Why not? If you are impacted, why not? When do you have a standing then? Visitors out of town have less standing than the people paying taxes to the town, that is fair, but the city IS the people, each and every person, not an abstract third party that herds them like cattle.

The impact should need to be material and related to some legal right you have, it seems to me. In general you cannot sue to enforce a contract or agreement you are not a party to, even if the outcome of adhering to that contract affects you.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#219

Post by perennialmind »

order-matters wrote: post #189
jjk166 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't B have standing? They presumably are residents of and taxpayers to city C, and they face property devaluation stemming from nearby municipal actions.

presumably because it's not their land and if A wanted to build a data center on it to begin with then B could do nothing about it. the key issue is C doing things that it's taxpayers dont want done. in this case though taxpayer money is not being spent, the property is being sold which means money is being generated for the taxpayers, and the new property owner is ultimately A never had the authority to contract the…

If you want to sell real estate while still retaining rights to visit a grave sited thereupon, the legal instrument is called an "easement". Sometimes the access grant is associated with ownership of another property (e.g. shared driveway), but it can just as easily be just to a sentimental goldfish aficionado.

Re: A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Data Center

#220

Post by unholiness »

db48x wrote: post #215
mr_00ff00 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is well thought out and a good point, it does feel like though there should be some “special case” for donating land to keep for public use as a park. You are right though, how long can someone who doesn’t own that land, have authority on how it is used.

If you want a park, then build a park. Don’t give away the land and hope someone else builds a park.

The Trustees of Reservations, in the Boston area, are a great example of this working well.
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