Recently, leaders in Gateway Cities spoke at the state house in support of an Act Relative to Neighborhood Stabilization. This bill was put together in a collaborative effort by MassINC, the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations, and the Gateway Cities legislative caucus as a means to assist municipalities in dealing with blighted and abandoned properties. Most discussion centered around the “bill’s spot blight eminent domain section,” per MassINC.
Rep. Lenny Mirra, noted in the discussion that “Eminent domain is for a particular purpose. It’s when the government takes property to use it for something else, and it seems like we’re using it here to take a property and keep it in the same use, in this case housing.”
The bill would allow for the use of Eminent Domain in the seizure of small properties which per Rep. Antonio Cabral, co-chair of the Gateway Cities Caucus, is currently “quite cumbersome” now, taking years to get done.
The Massachusetts Association of REALTORS® has yet to take a position on the issue.
