When politicians and developers collude, no one’s property is safe

Douglas Todd: Housing crisis as seen by one of B.C.'s biggest developers

Property developer Michael Audain says: "We change neighbourhoods and communities. And maybe neighbourhoods and communities need to change.”

When politicians and developers collude, no one’s property is safe

Is your home your castle? Not when eminent domain law lets politicians confiscate your property if they claim it’s for “public use.” Politicians say they need the power to take property to build public projects like roads and railroad tracks. OK. Seems reasonable. But now, developers collude with politicians to use the law unfairly, to force people to give up their land for private projects. In 1994, Donald Trump tried to use eminent domain to t…

The antique shop in the middle of a highway

People refusing to sell their homes to urban developers — so they end up having highways and skyscrapers built around them — is one of those things that happens often enough that it's 'no longer weird,' as Chuck Shepherd would say. But here's an early example, from the mid-1960s. Tokyo hosted the Summer Olympics in 1964, and launched massive urban construction projects in anticipation of the games. Thousands of people were offered money to sell…