James Dupree vs. City Hall: A Philadelphia Artist Fights to Save His Studio

Last week, Reason TV released a short documentary about James
Dupree, a Philadelphia artist whose studio may be seized by the
government to make way for a high-end grocery store. Click above to
watch the
video.

Here’s the original write up:

Philadelphia’s James Dupree is
an accomplished artist whose work has appeared in museum all over
the world, including his hometown’s
Philadelphia Museum of Art and
African American Museum.

In 2005, Dupree bought a dilapidated warehouse in the City of
Brotherly Love’s Mantua neighborhood and worked to turn it into a
studio that
hosts his personal workshop, art
classes, and even visitors through Airbnb.

That’s all being threatened by the Philadelphia Redevelopment
Authority (PRA), a local government agency that is supposed to
revitalize distressed neighborhoods. 

PRA made
plans with Aquinas Realty Partners to convert the block that
Dupree’s studio is on into a multi-use area with retail shops and a
high-end grocery store. PRA designated the studio as blighted and
moved to take it via eminent domain, the government’s right to
seize property for public use. It planned to give the property to
the private developer Aquinas. Part of the eminent domain process
is that dispossessed property owners must be offered fair and just
compensation. PRA offered Dupree $640,000 for his
property even though the estimated market value is $2.2
million.

Taking private property and then giving it to a developer
constitutes abuse of eminent domain, says Institute for Justice
senior attorney Scott Bullock. ”A
grocery store is like any other private business,” he explains. “It
is  about as far away from a public use as one could imagine.”
Historically, eminent domain was used to build things such as
roads, public schools, and hospitals. Increasingly, though, it’s
being used by governments to give favored developers sweetheart
deals.

Bullock was the lead counsel in the 2005 Supreme Court
case Kelo
v. New London, which involved a municipal government in
Connecticut seizing property and giving it to a private developer
to build a hotel complex. The high court ruled that it was
constitutional as long as the government said they were trying to
increase tax revenues. The Kelo decision was highly
controversial and led many states and municipalities to pass
tighter restrictions on the use of eminent domain.

Ironically, the inefficiency of municipal bureaucracy may
give Dupree his best chance of winning his case. When
PRA classified Dupree’s property as blighted, it ended up
condemning only
two of the three addresses his property sits on.

Dupree has begun an online
petition and has taken PRA to court. A decision is
expected later this year.

About 5 minutes. 

Produced by Joshua Swain. Narrated by Nick Gillespie. 

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