Property owners to become stakeholders in new development.

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has proposed an alternative to eminent domain that preserves the rights of the current property owners while allowing for redevelopment to take place.

Wouldn’t it be great if instead of summarily evicting current Downtown Newhall property owners, they could be offered an ownership interest in the new development instead?

The Lincoln Institute calls this process "land readjustment", where a large parcel of land is assembled by giving property owners a stake in the redevelopment project. Yu-Hung Hong, fellow at the Lincoln Institute and co-author of Analyzing Land Readjustment, says that "Land readjustment gives all affected property owners the power, by majority vote, to approve or disapprove the transfer of land rights to a self-governing body for redevelopment."

So how does this work? Instead of "selling" their properties to the City, the current property owners contribute their real assets (land and buildings) to the project as investment capital. In return, each owner receives a "land site of at least equal value in the vicinity of the original site upon the completion of the redevelopment". The City also benefits by not having to come with any up-front capital to buy out the original property owners.

Although this sounds like an off-the-wall concept, it’s apparently already used in other countries such as France, Germany, Israel, Japan, The Netherlands, South Korea, and Taiwan.

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