Council Opens Process for Eminent Domain

The City Council has decided to begin legal steps to acquire property that residents of Oasis Mobile Home Park do not want to sell.

Council members voted 4 to 1 to move ahead with eminent domain proceedings, the legal process that governments may use to buy land for civic projects.

The mobile-home park is on property the city wants for its so-called E-Street District, an 18-acre entertainment and restaurant project planned for the area around Harbor Boulevard and Chapman Avenue.

In addition to about half of the park’s 117 residents, officials are also negotiating with businesses and other property owners. Officials said the eminent domain process will begin within a few weeks with a court filing and could take as long as five months to complete.

Councilman Bob Dinsen, an opponent of the project and an longtime advocate for the park’s residents, most of whom are elderly, cast his vote against moving ahead and accused the council majority of inappropriate use of eminent domain laws.

“Eminent domain was made to make it possible to build roads and rails--things of vital concern to the public,” he said. “It was not intended to be used to take businesses away from people and use it for other businesses.”

But Matt Fertal, director of community development, said that when the Legislature enacted the state’s redevelopment law nearly 50 years ago, it included eminent domain provisions.

“It was explicitly put in there for the reasons we’re pursuing: the redevelopment of the property,” he said.

Despite eleventh-hour pleas by two property owners, the council majority said that the project will enhance the community and should move ahead.

Under terms reached with developers of the project, the 18 acres must be obtained by July.