August 18th, 2017

We want to return to the structure of the US FED branches to show how these branches controlled these US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zone subprime mortgage frauds.  If we look for example at CHICAGO home of Obama being partnered with DETROIT watching as Detroit sank into third world decay while Chicago was called the next NYC----TODAY we see global NGOS from Chicago filling Detroit along with those 5% global Wall Street player organizations.  ATLANTA Birmingham we see the same----St Louis, Little Rock home of Clintons----San Fran and LA handled by the same US FED branch and look at Texas---having the most US Fed branches-----home of Bush.  So, each US city tied to MOVING FORWARD FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE had its MAYOR MARTIN O'MALLEY building CITY/STATE STAT just so these subprime mortgage loan fraud schemes could play out.

Baltimore and Richmond US FED branch has Baltimore gutted with Richmond not doing so badly---we can bet MOVING FORWARD next decade moves northern Virginia ONE WORLD actions into GREATER RICHMOND.

So let's look at what the US FED has in THE MOST TOXIC OF SUBPRIME MORTGAGE LOAN REAL ESTATE.
Federal Reserve Bank President
Boston Eric S. Rosengren............................
New York City . William C. Dudley............................
Philadelphia Patrick T. Harker..................................
Cleveland Cincinnati, Ohio................................
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Sandra Pianalto........................
Richmond Baltimore, Maryland..........................
Charlotte, North Carolina Vacant...........................
Atlanta Birmingham, Alabama........................................
Jacksonville, Florida
Miami, Florida.............................................................
Nashville, Tennessee..................................................
New Orleans, Louisiana.......................................... Dennis P. Lockhart
Chicago Detroit, Michigan.......................................
Des Moines, Iowa Charles L. Evans..................................
St Louis Little Rock, Arkansas...................................
Louisville, Kentucky........................................
Memphis, Tennessee James B. Bullard.........................................
Minneapolis Helena, Montana Neel Kashkari..................................
Kansas City Denver, Colorado......................................
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma................................................
Omaha, Nebraska Esther George..............................................
Dallas El Paso, Texas................................................
Houston, Texas........................................................
San Antonio, Texas Robert Steven Kaplan....................................
San Francisco Los Angeles, California............................................
Portland, Oregon............................................
Salt Lake City, Utah............................................
Seattle, Washington John C. Williams..........................


___________________________________________

Here is CNN telling us what we have known from 2010----the US FED under Bernanke and Yellen allowed these same subprime mortgage frauds to occur again setting the stage for another collapse of our housing market.  What national media NEVER MENTIONS is this ROBBER BARON few decades is one long GOAL of MASTER PLANS for US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES and they always fail to educate how global banking is openly and criminally restructuring our US cities to assure the same global 1% get all the real estate intended to be inside CITY STATE CITY CENTERS-----



'Today, the Fed is again ignoring the GSEs and their potential contribution to future instability. According to Freddie's 2016 annual report, "Expanding access to affordable mortgage credit will continue to be a top priority in 2017." Fannie/Freddie have redefined "subprime" to a credit rating of below 620; previously, these firms and banking regulators had used 660 as the dividing line that defined a subprime borrower. Now by using the lower number, they may be buying even weaker mortgages than before the financial crisis'.

Here we are hearing today what we knew back in 2010-----any 'labor and justice' organization pretending to be helping the poor would have back in 2010 started mass protests against MOVING FORWARD SUBPRIME MORTGAGE FRAUDS but they cannot because they are those 5% players moving and shaking all those frauds locally.

Here in Baltimore all these operations are controlled by our US FED branches in Richmond/Baltimore telling the GREATER BALTIMORE AND BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT/JOHNS HOPKINS what real estate to target, how to capture it, and when that real estate will move into development.  Whether FAKE FRAUDULENT WATER BILLS AND TAX BILLS forcing citizens into foreclosure----whether loading low-income communities with global gun and drug cartel operations making all good citizens leave---all these actions have been used for several decades overseas in installing FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES and that is what has our US cities in decay and violent.

Do our local 5% to the 1% global Wall Street pols and players HAVE TO DO AS THEY ARE TOLD? Absolutely not. Global banking would have had NO POWER to destroy our strong economy and democracy without identifying those sociopaths not caring where MOVING FORWARD takes 99% of WE THE PEOPLE.


Are we heading toward another subprime mortgage crisis?

By William Poole


Updated 10:16 AM ET, Wed March 15, 2017

• William Poole: Nine years ago an oblivious Fed had to bail out Bear Stearns, which had invested in risky mortgages
• Poole says there are again signs that subprime mortgages are a problem and the Fed isn't paying enough attention

William Poole is senior fellow at the Cato Institute and distinguished scholar in residence at the University of Delaware. He retired as president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in March 2008. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.
(CNN)The Federal Reserve bailed out Bear Stearns on March 14, nine years ago. What has the Fed learned from that mistake? Not enough, perhaps.

William Poole
A little understood part of the Bear story is that in March 2008, the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, ignored critical facts concerning Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Unfortunately, the Fed may be making the exact same mistake today.



Bear's problems came from excessive investment in bonds based on subprime mortgages, which carry greater risk for one or more reasons, such as the borrower's poor credit rating. Fannie and Freddie were the principal housing lenders, having been organized as "Government Sponsored Enterprises" or "GSEs," and they were responsible for the creation of much of the subprime mortgages.Yet the FOMC transcripts and the staff materials prepared in March 2008 suggest that no one in the Fed bothered to read the GSE's 2007 annual reports, released February 28, 2008. In the FOMC conference call meeting March 10, there is mention of Fannie/Freddie in the context of declines in their stock prices, but no mention of important disclosures revealed in their annual reports.


And those reports showed that Fannie and Freddie were both essentially insolvent at the end of 2007, at the business-cycle peak before the recession had really started. These two companies had obligations outstanding almost as large as the total Treasury debt outstanding, far larger than Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers combined.


The possibility that households would cut consumption of goods and services as they attempted to meet subprime mortgage payments -- touching off a deep recession -- was never mentioned in the FOMC meetings surrounding Bear. Thus, failing to pay attention to the poor condition of the Fannie and Freddie mortgage loans was a Fed mistake that compounded the mistake of bailing out Bear Stearns.


Today, the Fed is again ignoring the GSEs and their potential contribution to future instability. According to Freddie's 2016 annual report, "Expanding access to affordable mortgage credit will continue to be a top priority in 2017." Fannie/Freddie have redefined "subprime" to a credit rating of below 620; previously, these firms and banking regulators had used 660 as the dividing line that defined a subprime borrower. Now by using the lower number, they may be buying even weaker mortgages than before the financial crisis.


The GSEs are wrapping new sub-subprime mortgages into the mortgage-backed securities they sell to the market. Fannie and Freddie guarantee these securities, and because the federal government stands behind the GSEs, there is little market discipline. Think about that: With regard to subprime mortgages we may now be in worse shape than we were before the crisis.


In the crisis, the Fed was overwhelmed by events because it was not paying adequate attention to subprime debt and had no contingency plans.


THAT IS A GREAT BIG LIE!  THESE REAL ESTATE FRAUDS WERE PLANNED IN CLINTON ERA.


Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Fed at the beginning of the crisis and then secretary of treasury, was one of the financial crisis managers. He explained Fed policy with great clarity in his 2014 book, "Stress Test:" "... We were lurching all over the place, and no one had any idea what to expect next. Hank [Paulson] said he wouldn't need to inject capital into Fannie and Freddie, then did what had to be done and injected $200 billion. Collectively, we helped prevent Bear's failure, then seemed to suggest we let Lehman fail on purpose, then turned around and saved AIG from collapse. ... Our unpredictability undermined the effectiveness of our response."


Where are we today?



Few observers believe the Fed has a clearly articulated strategy on its adjusting the fed funds rate, which is likely to be the subject of its announcement at the end of its meeting tomorrow. That rate is its principal policy tool determining the degree of monetary policy stimulus. Equally important, how and when will the Fed deal with its bloated portfolio? Over recent years, the Fed accumulated a massive number of Treasury and Fannie/Freddie bonds that it cannot retain indefinitely without creating a huge risk of future inflation.


Alan Greenspan had dissociated the Fed from supporting the GSEs to the maximum possible extent. Now, with its huge portfolio of mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie and Freddie, the Fed gives aid and comfort to the affordable housing lobby that created the subprime mortgage mess and the financial crisis.


In Freddie's 2016 Annual Report, the agency says 36% of its obligations are "credit enhanced," meaning they carry mortgage insurance of one sort or another, which is typically used for weaker mortgages. The insurance against default is only as good as the enhancing firms, and none is rated above BBB+. If these weak subprime mortgages begin to fail in large numbers, so also will the insuring companies.



There is one critical difference between today's situation and that of 2008: There is very little private capital that would be at risk if there's another subprime mortgage bust. Before the crisis, there was some market discipline, however imperfect it was, because potential buyers of mortgages would look at their quality carefully. Now only Fannie and Freddie are examining the quality of the mortgages. And it is taxpayers who would carry the burden of bailing out Fannie and Freddie, since their obligations are guaranteed by the US government.


According to the Fannie/Freddie annual reports for 2016, it is surely the case that subprime mortgage issuance is one force driving house prices once again — up by about 30% over the past four years and now about back to the elevated peak in 2006.


Will subprime debt begin to fail again when house prices level off?
Why isn't the Fed talking about this matter? Someone please convince me that "this time is different."

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If one reads the history of our US FED's management corporation handling all those DASTARDLY MOST TOXIC SUBPRIME MORTGAGE LOAN FRAUDS-----we will see WELLINGTON filled with global 1% executives from these very global hedge funds already having received all these few decades of massive global Wall Street fraud. 

IS EVERYONE IVY LEAGUE AT WELLINGTON?  ABSOLUTELY.

We are not saying this ONE global financial management group is tied to laundering these US Treasury-tied mortgage frauds all around the world---but we do know all these nations have the MOST US TREASURY DEBT AND SUBPRIME MORTGAGE LOAN DEBT-----we are told the US Treasury must meet the terms of these deals to FOREIGN NATIONS.

Actually inside each of these nations is a global 1% banking corporation registered in that nation but operating for the interests of these same hedge funds.  In each of these nations of course are the same OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% GREEKS AND FREEMASONS allowed to profit our our US FLEECING.

So the US FED these several years simply allow these groups to cull all that MOST TOXIC US CITY SUBPRIME MORTGAGE LOAN REAL ESTATE to decide who, what, when, where, and how that development will occur in US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.  As long as these real estate titles are held by banks, US FED that real estate remains undeveloped and in decay as in Baltimore.

This US FED outsourced management group then tells our local FED branches on what to work----they tell our Greater Baltimore and Baltimore Development and global IVY LEAGUE Johns Hopkins----and Baltimore Development and Hopkins sends out all their 'labor and justice' organizations to press for that real estate in each community.

We see branches of WELLINGTON in many of our IVY LEAGUE HEDGE FUND campuses----

When WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% hear in national news about all those IRRESPONSIBLE BAD CITIZENS trying to con the Federal Housing Agency in getting unqualified loans-----these are the movers and shakers of these subprime frauds----the 5% to the 1% working for those global 1%.



Boston, Massachusetts
Marlborough, Massachusetts
Radnor, Pennsylvania
Chicago, Illinois
San Francisco, California
Beijing, China
Hong Kong
Singapore
London, UK
Frankfurt, Germany
Sydney, Australia
Tokyo, Japan
Luxembourg
Zurich, SwitzerlandInfo@wellington.com


Company Overview of Wellington Management Group LLPSnapshot
 
PeopleCompany Overview

Wellington Management Group LLP is a privately owned investment manager. The firm provides its services to defined benefit plans, defined contributions plans, endowment and foundations, insurers, central banks and sovereign institutions, intermediaries and wealth managers, family offices, high net worth individuals, banking and thrift institutions, pension and profit sharing plans, investment companies, pooled investment vehicles, corporations, state and municipal government entities, charitable organizations, insurance companies, and other investment advisers. It manages separate client-focused equity, fixed income, balanced portfolios, commodity, and multi-asset portfolios. The firm also manages equity, fixed income, balanced, and multi-asset mutual funds for its clients. It invests in the public equity, fixed income, and alternative investment markets across the globe. For its equity portfolios, the firm invests in growth and value stocks of large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap companies. For its fixed income portfolios, it invests in corporate bonds, mortgage-backed securities, emerging market securities, and municipal bonds with short-term and intermediate-term maturity. The firm employs a combination of fundamental and quantitative analysis along with top-down and bottom-up stock picking approach to make its investments. It conducts in-house research to make its investments. The firm typically invests in diversified sectors. It prefers to take a majority stake. Wellington Management Company LLP was founded in 1928 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts with additional offices in Radnor, Pennsylvania, San Francisco, California, Marlborough, Massachusetts, and Chicago, Illinois.
______________________________________

WELLINGTON FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT just happens to manage our sovereign debt ---US Treasuries and state and local municipal bond debt-----it happens to manage Federal, state, and city pension funds----AND it happens to manage those global insurance corporations ready to implode with this round of FRAUDULENT CREDIT DEFAULT SWAP INSURANCE DEBT.

This is how our 99% retirements----pensions----now coming our LIFE INSURANCE policies ----our government bond debt is used AS FODDER. 



'pension and profit sharing plans, investment companies, pooled investment vehicles, corporations, state and municipal government entities, charitable organizations, insurance companies, and other investment advisers'.


'From ‘02 until the financial crisis in ‘08, Wall Street shoved as much toxic waste down those banks’ throats as they could handle. It wasn’t hard. Like the Japanese customers before them, the European banks were hell bent on indiscriminately buying assets from all over the globe'.


The US FED took those most toxic subprime mortgage loans off the hands of global Wall Street banks because RIGHT NOW these US city communities are in early gentrification---the real estate today is not what that real estate will be worth in a decade.  Global Wall Street Baltimore Development has all its 'labor and justice' organizations out trying to gentrify those low-income communities enough to make those toxic subprime mortgage real estate values rise.  When US FED gave those global Wall Street banks creating the frauds FREE MONEY in exchange for holding these toxic subprime mortgage loans---that FREE MONEY could only keep flowing if US FED raised interest rates---ergo----all national news discussion on FED raising interest rates.  We all know they have to because our US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES are no where near the gentrification levels needed to make toxic mortgage loan real estate VALUABLE.

Our US cities like Baltimore will not be MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS development until after this coming economic crash-----bringing our US cities into a fake depression/bankruptcy with a WORLD BANK/IMF forcing these US city developments to be FREE OF ALL US SOVEREIGN LAWS. Trump is installed to start these WORLD BANK controls---and this is when the US FED and its branches will start unloading those MOST TOXIC SUBPRIME MORTGAGE LOAN REAL ESTATES in cities like Baltimore.

The national media would have WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% all these global market fluxuations are HAPPENSTANCE when in fact these economic distortions were planned a few decades ago.......GREENSPAN/CLINTON ERA.

The US FED raising interest rates is directly tied to the FREE MONEY given to global Wall Street banks in exchange for holding their most toxic subprime mortgage loan fraud. This is why back in 2012 everyone tied to academic research and analysis KNEW this economic collapse and hyper-inflation from raising US FED rates was coming.....THIS IS THE ONLY CAUSE FOR FED RATE HIKES AND IT WILL BE THE ONLY CAUSE FOR COLLAPSE OF GLOBAL MARKETS.



There's a Big Reason Volatility Might Be Coming Back

By
Alex Harris
April 9, 2017, 12:00 AM EDT

• Traders already callling Fed’s plan ‘quantitative tightening’
• Central bank seeking to avoid repeat of 2013’s taper tantrum

Full Show: Bloomberg Technology (08/16)
Full Show: Bloomberg Technology (08/15)


Fed's Bullard Says Balance Sheet Higher Than It Should Be


Even with the bond market’s muted response to the Federal Reserve’s plan to begin winding down its almost $4.3 trillion portfolio of mortgage and Treasury securities, there are plenty of reasons why the calm probably won’t last.


Out of style for almost a decade, volatility may be on its way back if you take a closer look at the mechanics of the Treasury and mortgage markets. Despite the Fed’s mantra of seeking to carry out its policy shift in a “gradual and predictable manner,” analysts say the effects of ending the reinvestment of the proceeds from maturing securities will still be felt.


This is the “most highly anticipated event in central-bank history,” said Walter Schmidt, senior vice president of structured products at FTN Financial in Chicago. “We’ve known this for two years. We’ve been waiting for this.”


While the three rounds of Fed asset purchases that became known as quantitative easing sapped volatility, former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s comments in May 2013 that the central bank was considering scaling back purchases showed how quickly that can change. The so-called taper tantrum sent yields surging.


As the Fed begins to unwind, here are four reasons why we may see a renewal in volatility:



1. MBS Supply/Demand Shift


The Fed owns $1.77 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities, about 31 percent of the market. As the central bank’s MBS holdings begin to roll off, mortgage spreads to Treasuries are going to have to widen to adjust for the additional supply, which some analysts estimate will begin at around $5 billion a month.



Since the Fed concluded quantitative easing in October 2014, the spread between Fannie Mae 30-year current coupon and Treasuries has been sitting between 90 and 114 basis points, below its historical average of about 137 basis points. Mortgage spreads may widen five to 10 basis points once the market prices in a certainty of tapering reinvestments and another 10 to 20 basis points over the longer term, Citigroup Inc. analysts estimate.



2. Increased Convexity Hedging


If the Fed decides to pause interest-rate hikes while letting the balance sheet shrink, mortgage rates are still going to rise because a large source of demand is disappearing. As a result, prepayment speeds, the pace at which borrowers pay off loans ahead of schedule, are going to fall, which will cause the duration of the securities to increase.



It’s still a double whammy if the Fed continues to raise rates. Fed tightening would push up the effective fed funds rates, also reducing prepayment speeds and increasing the average duration of the securities.



When rates rise, hedging against so-called convexity risk grows as the expected life of mortgage debt increases. That happens when refinancing slows and tends to leave holders more vulnerable to losses as lower-duration securities are more vulnerable to rising rates. By protecting against those potential losses (selling Treasuries or entering into swaps contracts), traders can end up making the bond market more turbulent.



3. Rise in Term Premium, Withdrawal from Risk Assets



The most important market news of the day.


Get our markets daily newsletter.As the market prepares for the Fed’s unwind, it should place upward pressure on the 10-year term premium, a measure of the extra compensation investors demand to hold a longer-term instruments instead of rolling over a series of short-dated obligations. The premium could rise 47 basis points over the course of 2018 and 2019 due to the reduction in duration, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategists. Higher term premiums, coupled with increased mortgage duration could also cause a steepening of the five- to 10-year yield curve.


There’s also a chance that an increase in term premium triggers a withdrawal from risk assets such as equities, which have risen to record highs during almost a decade of accommodative Fed policy, though “the risk asset link is not as certain,” according to Bank of America strategist Mark Cabana.



4. Surge in Front-End Treasury Rates


The front end of the Treasury market will have its own set of issues when the balance sheet starts to shrink. The Treasury Department will have to decide which portion of the curve it wants to issue more securities: The front-end, where Treasury bills outstanding comprise less than 13 percent of marketable debt, or the long-end to take advantage of 30-year bonds trading around 3 percent.



“Treasury is going to need to increase front-end supply pretty notably,” Cabana said. “Banks losing reserves will be looking to replicate those assets.”


Assuming Treasury ramps up bill supply, rates on debt maturing in less than one year would likely rise, forcing up the overnight rate on Treasury repurchase agreements. That may cause usage at the Fed’s fixed-rate overnight reverse repurchase agreement facility to sink, as investors will pivot away from the operation.



“Overall, this should pressure rates higher, with banks having relatively more securities to finance in the repo market as time goes on,” said Scott Skyrm, managing director at Wedbush Securities in New York.
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We are seeing in US cities across the nation as in Baltimore these several years the installation of what are called CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS-----our Governor Hogan and Mayor PUGH calls them CORPORATE CAMPUS FOOTPRINTS----these are the earliest use of those toxic subprime mortgage loan frauds outside of our EAST BALTIMORE/DOWNTOWN ENTERPRISE ZONES.  Baltimore has UnderArmour----Amazon.com, along with global Johns Hopkins campuses having those HEADQUARTER FOOTPRINTS all on real estate claimed often through these MOST TOXIC SUBPRIME MORTGAGE LOAN FRAUDS.

The US FED branches are waiting for these US FED rate hikes to pretend to bring the coming economic crash ----and the collapse of our US Treasury bond and state/local municipal bonds to declare complete control of all economic and governance power in MOVING FORWARD.

This is why we shout this coming decade will be nothing but a GREAT DEPRESSION while US FED and global hedge funds organize just who, what, when, and how to MOVE FORWARD with expansion of global corporate factories tied to an UnderArmour---an Amazon.com---tied to global Johns Hopkins----this is when we will see our surrounding communities ---east and west see global corporate campus building for miles and miles---these incoming foreign corporations tied to an UnderArmour, an Amazon.com, a global Johns Hopkins will be the same global corporate partners from FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES OVERSEAS---ASIA, MIDDLE-EAST, LATIN AMERICA-----not one thing will happen for WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% OR THOSE DASTARDLY 5% PLAYERS.

Port Covington land is space for Under Armour to grow


Natalie ShermanContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun MARCH 2, 2015

Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank said Monday that he wants to create a new neighborhood on the waterfront acreage he has assembed in Port Covington, anchored by a relocated Under Armour headquarters and enlivened by shopping, restaurants, a distillery and horse stables.



The Port Covington land secures room for Under Armour to grow unencumbered by space limits and tensions with residents and neighboring businesess, said Plank, who founded the Baltimore-based sports apparel brand, which passed $3 billion in revenue last year.



"I do not want to limit how big of a company or how great of a company Under Armour can be because we're landlocked," he said. "It gives us an outlet from here and it allows us to do it from one central place."
Plank's first public comments on his ambitions for the South Baltimore peninsula came Monday as several smaller projects get underway.



His real estate firm, Sagamore Development, plans to break ground Wednesday on the Recreation Pier hotel in Fells Point, where it plans to open a 128-room inn around the end of 2016. It is scheduled to present plans Thursday for a rye distillery in Port Covington. The firm is also in the process of converting the former Port Covington Sam's Club into Under Armour offices, with employees moving in around the end of this year.

The 5.21-acre waterfront property off East Cromwell Street is zoned for mixed-use development and includes piers that could be used as a marina. An auction of the land is set for June 14. (Patrick Maynard / Tribune)



Plank said he wants to build a mixed-use community on the waterfront that combines an Under Armour campus with other elements that would draw people to the area. If approved, the Sagamore Spirits distillery would be open for tours and have a restaurant. Sagamore also is talking to the Police Department about building a stable for its horses next to the distillery, helping to evoke Plank's Sagamore Farm, where he breeds and trains thoroughbred racing horses in Baltimore County.



In addition to the distillery, the area would one day likely have a showcase Under Armour store, drawing visitors from Interstate 95.
"I think what makes a great campus is lots of different elements and not just simply a corporate campus where everyone disappears at 5 or 6 o'clock at night," he said. "Port Covington has never had any love. It's a beautiful place. … It just needs someone to give it a hug."



Plank has assembled more than 120 acres in Port Covington, a former industrial area once largely controlled by the CSX railroad and its predecessors. In the 1980s, the city targeted the area for redevelopment as The Baltimore Sun relocated its presses there, but little development followed until 2002 when Wal-Mart and Sam's Club opened stores there.


Sagamore's holdings include both stores, the former Baltimore Sun property, where the newspaper's printing press still operates, now-crumbling piers on the peninsula's east side, and the Schuster Concrete facility. Sagamore is also the owner of the Nick's Fish House property and the adjacent marina.


On land acquisition alone, Sagamore already has invested more than $90 million in the area. Plank declined to discuss specific parcels but said additional purchases are in the works. There's no firm timeline and a master plan still is being developed.


Sagamore is focused on developing the vacant land first, said Marc Weller, president of Sagamore Development. Negotiations with existing tenants on the site are continuing.



Plank said some, such as the Wal-Mart, may need to relocate to make way for the development.


The Baltimore Sun has a long-term lease on its printing plant, which Sagamore purchased for $46.5 million in December from Tribune Media Co., which retained Tribune Co.'s broadcast and real estate assets last year when it spun off its newspapers as Tribune Publishing Co..



Eventually, Under Armour could consolidate its Baltimore operations in Port Covington, but any final decision about that is years away, Plank said. Under Armour purchased its Tide Point campus in 2011 for $60.5 million.


"We want to create one of the world's greatest campuses that is filled with vibrancy and includes all the things you would see in a great mixed-use environment as well," said Weller, a Washington-area developer and friend of Plank's since their teenage years. "Under Armour is first priority."



About 2,000 people work at Under Armour's Tide Point headquarters and in other offices around the city, including Harbor East, Plank said. The firm, which employs about 10,700 people worldwide, also has offices in New York, San Francisco, Portland, Ore., and Austin, Texas.


Baltimore Development Corp. President Bill Cole said he has spoken to Sagamore about the early outlines of what a vision for the area might include. He said he believes Plank's investment in the area is "great for everybody involved."



"I don't think anybody who looks at Port Covington sees its highest and best use as it presently sits," he said. "The level of investment and interest in making it something a bit more dynamic is great."


Plank said he decided to go into real estate after being rebuffed by the board of the Baltimore Museum of Industry in 2012 when he proposed an expansion that would have included its Locust Point property. The museum has declined previously to comment on Under Armour's presentation, saying it has a policy of not discussing private meetings.


"I'm sitting there and I'm thinking to myself this is awful. … They're stifling our growth," he said. "How could anyone not want us to grow?"
The rejection came while he was in Dubai, a city that has experienced a massive building boom in the last decade.


"I thought to myself, we could do something like that," he said. "Number one, I've got the engine in Under Armour. Number two ... I can afford to make these decisions, so why am I waiting on [the Museum of Industry] board of directors?"



Today, Sagamore Development employs 13 people, Weller said. The firm operates as a unit of Plank Industries, the firm established to handle Plank's private investments, which is guided by the principle that investments should provide at least some tangential benefit to Under Armour.


Plank said improving the city through investments such as the Recreation Pier hotel will make it easier to attract the best talent to Under Armour, while ensuring a good impression for its visitors. It also allows Under Armour to focus on its core business, he said.


"Obviously, it's a very delicate line, but it's one in which our interests are completely aligned," he said of the balance between his private investments and the publicly traded company, of which he remains the largest shareholder. "The better I make my company, the better I make the city, the better we make this area, it makes it easier to attract people."


Cole said he expects Plank will have an easier time with his plans to grow in Port Covington than in a crowded residential and industrial area like Locust Point.



"The Port Covington site itself is a much more appealing area because it has far fewer complicating factors," said Cole, who represented Locust Point as a city councilman before taking the BDC job. "It's a blank slate for the most part."


Plank has assembled more than 120 acres in Port Covington, a former industrial area once largely controlled by the CSX railroad and its predecessors. In the 1980s, the city targeted the area for redevelopment as The Baltimore Sun relocated its presses there, but little development followed until 2002 when Wal-Mart and Sam's Club opened stores there.



Sagamore's holdings include both stores, the former Baltimore Sun property, where the newspaper's printing press still operates, now-crumbling piers on the peninsula's east side, and the Schuster Concrete facility. Sagamore is also the owner of the Nick's Fish House property and the adjacent marina.



On land acquisition alone, Sagamore already has invested more than $90 million in the area. Plank declined to discuss specific parcels but said additional purchases are in the works. There's no firm timeline and a master plan still is being developed.


Sagamore is focused on developing the vacant land first, said Marc Weller, president of Sagamore Development. Negotiations with existing tenants on the site are continuing.



Plank said some, such as the Wal-Mart, may need to relocate to make way for the development.
The Baltimore Sun has a long-term lease on its printing plant, which Sagamore purchased for $46.5 million in December from Tribune Media Co., which retained Tribune Co.'s broadcast and real estate assets last year when it spun off its newspapers as Tribune Publishing Co..



Eventually, Under Armour could consolidate its Baltimore operations in Port Covington, but any final decision about that is years away, Plank said. Under Armour purchased its Tide Point campus in 2011 for $60.5 million.



"We want to create one of the world's greatest campuses that is filled with vibrancy and includes all the things you would see in a great mixed-use environment as well," said Weller, a Washington-area developer and friend of Plank's since their teenage years. "Under Armour is first priority."


About 2,000 people work at Under Armour's Tide Point headquarters and in other offices around the city, including Harbor East, Plank said. The firm, which employs about 10,700 people worldwide, also has offices in New York, San Francisco, Portland, Ore., and Austin, Texas.


Baltimore Development Corp. President Bill Cole said he has spoken to Sagamore about the early outlines of what a vision for the area might include. He said he believes Plank's investment in the area is "great for everybody involved."



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Isn't it strange that the worst of militarized police brutality and black citizens' deaths occurred under a black President OBAMA while now the public outrage geared towards that white population tied to race have a white President Trump in office while all this happens! Hmmmmmm.....it all seems tied to MOVING FORWARD FAILED STATE making room for MOVING FORWARD DEEP STATE.

We were shouting under Obama that all these violence against our black citizens was tied to Congressional laws building a militarized police and security in ALL US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.  We need to scare citizens inside low-income communities having real estate ready for development.  5% black, white, and brown are passing all these repressive DEEP STATE policies while pushing FAKE 99% issues like these.  Most 99% of white citizens did not support nor get into frenzy over the prospect of our black citizens during Obama's terms loss all rights as citizens AND we are already hearing from most black citizens today they KNOW these silly pulling down of confederate monuments is a PLOY to cover gorilla in the room issues MOVING FORWARD----worse than our Confederate slavery or plantation economies.

The victims of HOLOCAUST deliberately erected monuments and public arts to REMIND PEOPLE of how the worst in humanity needs to be kept in check----so there is absolutely no value for BLACK, WHITE, OR BROWN citizens to have history torn down.  We want to note that almost all of our civil rights, labor, women, veterans' monuments and historical venues are ALSO being torn down as US city FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE development MOVES FORWARD.  

As FAKE left social progressive groups get people marching over issues shaking fists at people having little effect on what is happening in our US cities----that is what 5% to the 1% get paid to do----distract 99% of WE THE PEOPLE from these real issues----

IT MATTERS WHO CONTROLS ALL REAL ESTATE REGARDLESS IN US CITIES OUR SURROUNDING SUBURBS.  THIS IS THE MASS PROTESTING BY PEACEFUL MARCHES IN US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.

What global 1% do not want is to STOP MOVING FORWARD because all this real estate fraud throughout subprime mortgage loan pedaling brings NO WEALTH UNTIL GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUSES ARE BUILT IN US CITIES.


Baltimore holocaust memorial
Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
youtube.com




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The most obvious losers in US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE subprime mortgage loan frauds clawing US city real estate into the hands of global bankers----are those black and brown citizens making up the majority of home-ownership for those population groups. Our white families in US cities were the ones selling out of US cities and buying homes in suburbs and rural America. It is amazing to watch as a REAL left social progressive all these 5% black, white, and brown global Wall Street players reversing all these gains in property wealth and personal wealth.
What citizens tied to RACE AND CLASS need to remember-----this decade or two coming expansion of global corporate campuses and global factories will see these subprime mortgage fraud schemes coming further out to suburbs and rural white communities----actually it is already happening. Will those middle/working class families in our suburbs/rural communities REALLY be able to buy homes in US city centers? Of course not----they are building GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS DORMITORIES AND TINY HOUSES for 99% of WE THE PEOPLE.
NO PROPERTY RIGHTS FOR 99% IN DARK AGES------THE GLOBAL 1% OWNED ALL LAND AND SUBLET IT TO TENET FARMERS----

African Americans Have Lost Untold Acres of Land Over the Last Century



An obscure legal loophole is often to blame.By Leah DouglasJune 26, 2017



Queen Quet, Head-of-State and Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, which once occupied Hilton Head and most of the coastal islands that fringe the southeastern United States. (Richard Ellis)
 

Driving the long, flat roads of Hilton Head Island is hypnotic. One bike-rental shop blends into another; countless villa-style office complexes advertise real-estate agents and banks. Tourists meander to their cars wearing all white, carrying brightly colored smoothies. Rows of palm trees wave slowly over the crawling traffic. A waterfront hotel looms on the horizon.



This story was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a non-profit investigative news organization.


Along Allen Road, though, an older version of Hilton Head is preserved. The short street bisects a 38-acre plot and travels past some 23 trailers that house members of the Allen family. Tall oak and pine trees block the sun from flowering shrubs in the sandy soil. The noise from passing cars is drowned out by bird chatter and an occasional shout from one family member to another.


Matthew Allen, now in his 70s, grew up visiting this family land where his father and grandfather grew up. “When [my father] was coming up,” he recalls, “they used to…go down to the water to fish. They used to hunt. [They] used to farm the land, used to grow okra, corn, sweet potatoes. They took full advantage of the land.”



It was Dennis Allen, Matthew’s great-grandfather, who purchased the land on Hilton Head. The son of slaves, Dennis Allen bought his first parcel of nearly 20 acres in 1897, at a time when African Americans were purchasing land across the country. Today, the Allen family owns the largest undeveloped lot on Hilton Head.


But as the land enters its 120th year in the family, the Allens are struggling to hold on to it. Because of ambiguities surrounding the land’s title, there is no primary owner of the property; all of the heirs of the original owners—and there are more than 100 known heirs—are legally co-owners. As such, the land is classified as “heirs’ property,” a designation that makes it vulnerable to being sold without the family’s full consent. As the Allens attempt to overcome a stacked legal system—exacerbated by corrupt lawyers and predatory developers—they are at the center of a decades-long fight to retain black-owned land across the South.



In the 45 years following the Civil War, freed
 slaves and their descendants accumulated roughly 15 million acres of land across the United States, most of it in the South. Land ownership meant stability and opportunity for black families, a shot at upward mobility and economic security for future generations. The hard-won property was generally used for farming, the primary occupation of most Southern blacks in the early 20th century. By 1920, there were 925,000 black-owned farms, representing about 14 percent of all farms in the United States.


Over the course of the 20th century, however, that number dropped precipitously. Millions of farmers of all races were pushed off their land in the early part of the century, including around 600,000 black farmers. By 1975, just 45,000 black-owned farms remained. “It was almost as if the earth was opening up and swallowing black farmers,” writes scholar Pete Daniel in his book Dispossession: Discrimination Against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights. Implicit in the decline of black farming was the loss of the land those farmers once tilled. Today, African Americans compose less than 2 percent of the nation’s farmers and 1 percent of its 
rural landowners.



Many factors contributed to the loss of black-owned land during the 20th century, including systemic discrimination in lending by the US Department of Agriculture, the industrialization that lured workers into factories, and the Great Migration. But the lesser-known issue of heirs’ property also played a role, allowing untold thousands of acres to be forcibly bought out from under black rural families—often second-, third-, or fourth-generation landowners whose ancestors were 
enslaved—by real-estate developers and speculators.



By one estimate, 81 percent of these early black landowners didn’t make wills, largely due to a lack of access to legal resources. Their descendants then inherited the land without a clear title, and it thereby became designated as heirs’ property. Although heirs’ property exists in many regions of the country, it’s most prevalent in low-income communities. In the South, according to one estimate, more than 50 percent of heirs’-property owners are African-American, many of them the descendants of slaves and sharecroppers. The Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation, based in Charleston County, South Carolina, estimates that there are 105,000 acres of heirs’ property in its 15-county service area alone.
“The property that we owned was prime property. Over time, it’s been sold and traded and stolen.”—Gullah native Alex Brown.



Without a clear title, heirs’-property owners are limited in what they can do with their land. They can’t get mortgages or do extensive repairs on their homes; as a consequence, some live in trailers. They aren’t eligible to apply for state or federal housing aid (such as funds provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency) or for nearly any of the programs administered by the Department of Agriculture, including the crucial loans and conservation funding that keep many rural landowners afloat. “So [they’re] already hampered because [they] have heirs’ property,” explains Jennie L. Stephens, the executive director of the center, “but now [they’re] sitting here with these hundreds of acres, and [they] can’t do anything with it.”



As with the Allen family, heirs’ property is often jointly owned by many descendants, some of whom are scattered across the country and may never have met one another. Each has a claim to the land, but this type of joint ownership makes them vulnerable to a peculiar legal challenge: Any one of these co-owners has the legal right to sell their share of the property—or even to bring the whole parcel of land to court-ordered auction—without the consent of the others.



These “partition sales” are one cause of the dispossession crisis, according to the Heirs’ Property Retention Coalition. Property developers entice faraway relatives who may never have visited their family’s land to sell their share for a fraction of its market value. Once they buy a share, these developers can then sell all of the land at auction for a large profit. A 2001 report from the US Agricultural Census estimated that about 80 percent of black-owned farmland had disappeared in the South since 1969. Approximately half of that land was lost through partition sales.



Thomas W. Mitchell, an expert in heirs’ property at the Texas A&M University School of Law, says families will often try to fend off partition sales by arguing that their land is historically significant, or of cultural importance to the African-American 
community. But until recently, the courts weren’t legally required to take into account the historical or cultural value of the land, and so they generally don’t.



Mitchell attributes the persistent and ongoing issue of partition sales in the African-American community to a question of power, at least in part. “If the Kennedys, the Bushes, or the Clintons had their property sold under these circumstances,” he says, “the law would have been reformed” by now.



Living History: Alex Brown stands before a re-creation of an original Gullah house. (Richard Ellis)
Hilton Head, on the southeastern coast 
of South Carolina, is one of more than 100 coastal islands that form the Sea Islands. Though it is now primarily known as a golfing and resort destination, Hilton Head was once almost entirely inhabited by the Gullah people. The Gullah are descendants of enslaved West Africans who, like Dennis Allen, moved to the Sea Island region at the end of the Civil War, or who had previously been enslaved on area plantations. Gullah communities thrived for decades on the isolated islands, largely free of the restrictions of the Jim Crow South. For generations, they maintained an agricultural, barter-based economy.



Then, in the mid-1950s, development came to Hilton Head. Wealthy industrialists bought up hundreds of acres for recreational sites as highway and bridge construction made it easier for mainland residents to reach the islands. By the 1990s, the waterfront properties on Hilton Head had become highly desirable among wealthy whites seeking a vacation home.



The development displaced many Gullah people. Some families lost their land to rising property taxes, which they could no longer afford to pay, but others lost their land in partition sales, their property brought to auction by developers in forced sales or by partial owners convinced to sell it for a fraction of its value. In areas where the Gullah once made up 90 percent or more of the population, they account for as little as 10 percent today, according to Willie Heyward, managing attorney at the Heirs’ Property Law Firm. Somewhere between 200 and 700 acres of the land on Hilton Head—no one knows the exact number—
remain in Gullah hands.



“The property that we owned was prime property,” says Alex Brown, a Gullah native and chair of the island’s planning commission. “Over time, it’s been sold and traded and stolen.” And because of the Gullah’s unique history of agricultural production, the loss of land amounts to a loss of culture.


“If we don’t have our land, we don’t have our family,” says Queen Quet, chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation. “This is the battle we’re in now.”
To this day, South Carolina is the “ground zero” of African-American partition sales.



Beyond Hilton Head, all of South Carolina has experienced enormous demographic shifts in the past 50 years. African Americans comprised nearly half of the state’s farmers in 1950, but by 2012 represented just 7 percent. In Beaufort County, which includes Hilton Head and other coastal islands, the population is now 
77 percent white, compared with 57 percent black in 1950. This shift has created tension between “native islanders” and the newcomers, many of them white retirees from the North. And it was facilitated by the forced sale of thousands of acres of black-owned land. To this day, Mitchell says, South Carolina is the “ground zero” of African-American partition sales.



Many members of the Allen family say they 
never wanted to get involved with Horace Jones Jr. Some say a distant relative had begun conversations with the lawyer about clearing the title to the Allen family land—that is, removing Dennis Allen’s name from the title and replacing it with the names of living heirs, thus eliminating any legal ambiguities around their ownership of the land—but they add that the family never hired him. Another member of the family told The Island Packet, the local paper serving Beaufort County, that the family had retained Jones to help track its genealogy and build a family tree to help clear the title to the land. But many agree that Jones didn’t have anyone’s consent to start a lawsuit—allegedly on behalf of several family members—to partition and sell the 38-acre plot in 2009.




Jones had worked as an attorney in York County, South Carolina, on heirs’-property and other estate cases for more than two decades. According to an article in the Rock Hill Herald, former clients described him as “a stand-up guy.” The Allens disagree. Members of the family listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit that Jones initiated insisted to me, as well as in affidavits submitted to the court, that they didn’t want to sell the land, and that Jones forged their signatures. The family has filed an unsuccessful motion to dismiss the partition case. Yet because the Allen family tree is still unfinished and the title has yet to be cleared, the judge could rule at any time simply to auction off the land.



Since Jones filed the initial sale documents, the Allens have been approached by several developers hoping to buy their land, or to convince family members to sell their stake in it. One real-estate developer, the Melrose Holding Company, offered $4.5 million for the property.
There have been many opinions in the Allen family about selling their land—and, indeed, one branch of the extended family, composed of about six people, has retained another lawyer, Terry Finger, to represent their interests in court. But much of the family doesn’t want to sell. “We have worked hard to save this piece of land,” says Ethel Simmons, Matthew Allen’s cousin, who lives on the property with her mother. “If we lose the land, it’s going to hurt a lot of us.”


In August 2016, many members of the family submitted affidavits to the Beaufort County Court to say they weren’t notified of the land’s partitioning and were “stunned” that the sale was initiated without the family’s consent. They expressed particular concern over the fate of elderly relatives still living on the property should the auction proceed. “We are not wild [beasts roaming] on the property, we are law-abiding citizens,” wrote Queen Mary Allen-Davis, a member of the family, in an affidavit. “We are not animals. We are people.”


As the Allens struggled to free themselves from Jones’s lawsuit, the lawyer’s reputation was sullied by felony charges alleging that he had stolen about $750,000 from clients. On October 12, 2015—the date Jones was scheduled to appear at his trial—he shot himself in a wooded area about 200 miles from the courthouse. The allegations against him included an account from a woman who had hired Jones to assist in clearing the titles to five parcels of heirs’ property. Jones allegedly sold the land without her consent, collecting the profits for himself.
The Braddock's Point Cemetery, an historic Gullah burial ground now surrounded by Hilton Head's Sea Pines resort. (Richard Ellis.)


On September 22, 2016, Nikki Haley, then 
governor of South Carolina, signed the Clementa C. Pinckney Uniform Partition of Heirs’ Property Act. The law, named for the revered state senator and pastor who was killed in the 2015 massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, provides several protections for heirs’-
property owners. If one co-tenant initiates a sale, for instance, the other co-tenants must be given an opportunity to buy that tenant’s share before the land can be sold. The act also requires judges to consider things like the sentimental, cultural, or historical significance of the land as well as its market value (previously the only consideration in most cases) before ruling to sell it. And if the land is sold, it must be sold on the open market instead of at auction, so that families receive a fair price. Josh Walden, the supervising attorney at the Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation, calls the act a “great tool” with the potential to preserve the land of many heirs’-property owners. Queen Quet calls it “a blessing.”



The law has its origins in model legislation that was written in 2010 by the Uniform Law Commission, which drafts bills for states to consider. Thomas W. Mitchell was its lead author—only the second African American in the history of the commission to serve as the lead author of a uniform law. He calls the act the “most significant reform to property law in the history of this country.” It has already been passed by 10 states, including Alabama, Connecticut, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas, and was introduced in the District of Columbia earlier this year.



Beyond South Carolina, there is some evidence that black land ownership is on the rise. One 1999 study found that there were roughly 68,000 black agricultural landowners in the United States who owned more than 7.7 million acres, mostly in the South. The 2012 Census of Agriculture showed that the number of farms with black principal operators had risen 9 percent since 2007.



For some heirs’-property owners on the Sea Islands, the new law may prove seminal in protecting what land remains in the Gullah’s hands. For others, it comes too late. For the Allens, the law’s effect remains to be seen. While the family is cautiously optimistic, they would still need to bring a new lawsuit under the act, since it doesn’t apply retroactively to their existing case.


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Ever since Judge Marvin H. Dukes III denied their motion to dismiss the case, the Allens have been in and out of court. Recently, Matthew Allen and his branch of the family presented a proposal outlining how family members could work together, without intervention from the courts, to solve their conflicts over the land. Meanwhile, the few family members who do want to sell have taken steps to appoint a receiver, who would manage the family’s affairs while the land is still in dispute. The majority of the Allen family’s members don’t want the receiver appointed.
Margarite Washington, Matthew Allen’s cousin, has lived on Allen Road her whole life. Behind her home is a small memorial, a two-foot cross with a few flowers planted around it. Nearly five years ago, her 8-year-old nephew was killed by a stray bullet on that spot. “If they take the land, we’ll lose all of this,” she says, motioning to the memorial. “We would be devastated. Where are we going to go?”


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Here is what comes next for WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% still managing to hold on to property in GREATER BALTIMORE and across Maryland------here we see during these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---
Eminent domain for construction of global corporate campuses began to grow during BUSH ERA-----we see those states most motivated to move control of land to selected people. We know our northern states will have climate suitable to growing food et al so all of NE has been just that -----an eminent domain fiesta working hard to make sure the global 1% control that valuable NE REAL ESTATE.. of course there is TEXAS----don't mess with Texas became GET OUT OF TEXAS as global 1% were allowed to use eminent domain in expanding those early developing US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
This will SOAR in coming decade or two as US CITY GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS HEADQUARTERS in city centers move to expand global corporate campuses and fill with global factories-----this is when Baltimore EAST corporations MOVE NORTH and Baltimore WEST corporations move north. Those pesky 5% white, black, and brown citizens have been jumping from gentrified community to gentrified community----but KNOW WHAT? THEY ARE GOING UNDER THE BUS---The 5% don't care--they are living for today---but the 99% black, white, and brown have our children and grandchildren wanting FUTURES as citizens in our developed US Rule of Law, US Constitutional, Bill of Rights nation.
Know doubt the US FED has much real estate in hand as toxic subprime mortgage loan fraud----the WORLD BANK/IMF brought in to govern US cities in bankruptcy will give green lights to EMINENT DOMAIN BIG-TIME.


Top Ten Worst Abuses of Eminent Domain Spotlighted in New Report



ij.org/press-release/top-ten-worst-abuses-of-eminent-domain-spotlighted-in-new-report/

“Government Theft: The Top 10 Abuses of Eminent Domain, 1998-2002,” ... often acting in concert with a private development corporation or other private interests, ... Despite explicit limitations in the U.S. Constitution and nearly every state ...





Press Release    |    March 4, 2002
Matt Powers
Communications Coordinator

Washington, D.C.—A coalition of the nation’s leading legal advocates against the abuse of eminent domain and individual property owners whose rights are being violated released a report today that spotlights the 10 most egregious instances of government condemnations for private benefit.  “Government Theft: The Top 10 Abuses of Eminent Domain, 1998-2002,” demonstrates both the human cost of the practice and the nationwide scope of the issue.




The worst abuses were found in 10 states:


Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, Ohio and Texas.  In each instance, the government, often acting in concert with a private development corporation or other private interests, condemned homes or small businesses so they could be transferred to another party for its purely private benefit.



Despite explicit limitations in the U.S. Constitution and nearly every state constitution that allow condemnations only for public use—such as for public buildings—for the past 50 years, unrestrained local and state governments across the nation have taken property for private businesses in the name of “economic development.”  Homes and businesses have been bulldozed, replaced by newer businesses and more upscale homes owned not by the public, but by private, politically powerful individuals and corporations.


“Sadly, these ten cases are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Dana Berliner, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice and author of the report.  “More than 100 cases have come to our attention, and we hear about new private condemnations every week, but many more either go unreported or are settled by property owners who understandably cave in to the enormous threat of condemnation.”



In 1998, the head of the Council for Urban Economic Development estimated that cities undertake roughly 80 projects per year for private businesses that involve condemnations, and each project could involve more than one condemnation.



Among the examples cited in the report:  more than 1,700 buildings in Riviera Beach, Fla., are threatened with condemnation, potentially displacing more than 5,000 residents for private commercial and industrial development.  In New London, Conn., seven homeowners in the historic Fort Trumbull neighborhood have been fighting for three years to save their land from condemnation.  In that case, the City of New London actually delegated its awesome power of eminent domain to a private organization, the New London Development Corporation, which is carrying out the condemnations to make way for private office space and other unknown projects to enhance the neighboring plant of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.



“Our cities and states have become like real estate speculators, securing land owned by their own citizens on behalf of politically connected private interests,” added Scott Bullock, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which has waged successful campaigns against the abuse of eminent domain in Atlantic City, N.J., Baltimore, Md., and Pittsburgh, Pa. and is currently litigating cases in Canton, Miss., New London, Conn., and New York, N.Y.  “The abuse of eminent domain is corporate welfare at its worst, and it’s happening all across the nation.”



The Institute for Justice today also announced the formation of the Castle Coalition, a nationwide network of citizen activists determined to stop the abuse of eminent domain in their communities.  The Castle Coalition will act as a resource for property owners threatened by eminent domain.  It will offer information, training and support to help them battle condemnation abuses.  To launch the coalition, the Institute for Justice this weekend brought together nearly three dozen property owners and activists from around the nation whose homes and businesses are threatened by eminent domain abuse to train them in the art of community activism.



The coalition’s new website, www.CastleCoalition.org, provides a way for activists and property owners to connect with each other and share ideas and advice.  The website features an “Eminent Domain Abuse Survival Kit,” which offers tools and information to fight eminent domain, including timelines of the typical condemnation process, links to friendly organizations that can help battle condemnation, and outreach advice.
“If citizens band together, they can stop the bulldozers,” said Bullock.  “Much of the abuse happens at the local level, so community organizations can be particularly effective in applying pressure to local governments.”


“Witnessing the pain of homeowners and small-business owners faced with losing what’s rightfully theirs is gut-wrenching,” added Stephanie Parker-Weaver, executive secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Jackson, Mississippi, who built a coalition on behalf of property owners in Mississippi whose property is threatened by the state in order to hand it over to Nissan for a new truck plant.  “The formation of the Castle Coalition is a giant leap forward in making their voices heard.”


The Institute is the nation’s leading legal advocate against eminent domain abuse.  The Institute litigates eminent domain cases throughout the country and was the organization that won a case on behalf of a widow whose house was sought by Donald Trump and a New Jersey government agency.  In 2000, the Institute also spearheaded a successful campaign against eminent domain abuse in downtown Pittsburgh, where the mayor proposed taking more than 60 buildings and 120 privately owned businesses to give the property to a developer to build an urban shopping mall.  In November 2000, the mayor abandoned his plans and pledged not to use eminent domain in future efforts to develop the area.  In October 2000, the Institute filed a lawsuit in federal district court in New York challenging New York’s unconstitutional eminent domain procedures and in December 2000, the Institute launched a legal challenge to the use of eminent domain in New London, Conn., where the government and a private corporation want to take homes and businesses to build privately owned office buildings and other unspecified development projects.