An absolute disgrace is unfolding in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, where a massive, government-backed university is using the heavy hand of the state to trample on the private property rights of an elderly American citizen.
Arizona State University and the Arizona Board of Regents have filed a condemnation lawsuit seeking to use eminent domain to forcibly take a 124-year-old historic home from its 89-year-old owner who has lived there and protected it for more than 50 years.
Eminent domain is the government’s “legal right” to seize private property for public use, provided the owner is paid “just compensation” (fair market value).
Robert Young, an 89-year-old former criminal defense attorney and real estate agent, has owned the Louis Emerson House in Phoenix’s Evans-Churchill neighborhood since 1975, according to Phoenix New Times.
Built in 1902, years before Arizona became a state, the Queen Anne-style Victorian home is one of the last surviving pre-statehood single-family residences in the area.
It sits on the Phoenix Historic Property Register and represents real craftsmanship from a bygone era when Phoenix was still a young territory town.
ASU wants the land — and plans to raze the home — to complete its sprawling new downtown health campus and medical school complex.
The $200 million project includes a five-story, 170,000-square-foot facility for the John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering, with groundbreaking already held in April. The university claims it needs “immediate possession.”