So if I own property, I am not allowed to sell it? If two or three years ago I rented a home to a family, gave them six months' notice, paid their moving costs, all to sell at the market zenith -- whether I wanted to sell the land for a McMansion or as a part of a larger parcel for Wal-Mart or a hospital or a porn printing plant -- you would prevent it? So, um, is private property theft, Mr. Marx?

let stop Wal Mart for Building the Wal Mart Supercenter in Sunshine Village Mobile Home Park Land Community in Palm Spring Florida right of away and right now please and Wal Mart can't Build a Supercenter in Sunshine Village Mobile Home Park Village Land in Palm Spring Florida and please tell Wal Mart Sunshine Village Mobile Home Park Resident want to keep their community in Palm Spring Florado right of away and right now please beause Palm Beach got too many Wal Mart Supercenter

Ray,

You have a right to sell your property (with a few exceptions), but that doesn't mean the buyer has a right to do whatever he or she wants with that property.

The article is only asking people to contact the city manager and petition him (and by extension, the council) to keep the zoning to stay the way it is.

That's not Marxism; it's democracy in action.

Quick question-

What will the owners do with the unwanted property once the public forces them to keep it?

Ike,

No one is forcing them to keep the property. The public can't force them to keep the property. The first half of my sentence above was "You have a right to sell your property".

What I meant was, you have a right to sell your property.

Should I type slower? Maybe get the crayons out?

If you actually read the article, you will see that no one is forcing, or trying to force the owner to keep the property. In fact, no one is preventing, or trying to prevent WalMart from purchasing the property. They just want local zoning regulations to stay in place so it can't be used to create a large retail center. WalMart can still buy the land, but they can only use it for approved uses. Odds are, WalMart will no longer want to buy the property, but there is nothing stopping them from buying it.

So... again... the owners can sell the property.

What can the owners do with the property if they choose not to sell, or cannot get a high enough price? They can continue to rent the property, or they could build an apartment or condo complex. (Odds are, the area is zoned MFR or the local equivalent. If it's zoned SFR, they can build houses.)

You can't build a noxious chemical plant in the middle of a residential area. That doesn't mean you can't sell the property, or even sell it to a chemical company. Similarly, just because you can't build a WalMart doesn't you can't sell the land, or even sell it to WalMart.

Great. Thanks for answering my question. If you actually read the article, the problem is not that a retailer is purchasing the property, the problem is that the residents are being evicted. Fighting the rezoning is only a tactic being used to stop the sale and the resulting evictions. The rezoning itself is not the complaint.

Obviously, Walmart will not buy property that they can't use. So that throws that option out. One of your other suggestions was to build an apartment complex or condo. In that case, the residents are likely to be evicted anyway, or at least temporarily during construction. I doubt the residents of an aging trailer park will be able to afford rent in a shiny new condo. If they could, that's probably where they would be now. So, although no rezoning will be required, the residents will still be upset they they will lose their homes and will probably mobilize again to stop the construction. What's the difference?

That leaves only one of your options left for the owners: continue renting out the property. That's just a rewording of what I wrote (and you claimed was wrong): the owners are stuck with the unwanted property.

Ike, no one denies the right of the property owner to sell the property to Wal-Mart or the right of Wal-Mart to build on the land. The actual problem is the state changed its laws back around 2001 to allow people's mobile homes to be stolen for pennies on the dollar where the law used to require fair market value compensation. These people can not replace their housing for anywhere near what they will recieve. This is where Wal-Mart could step up and do the right thing. Cornerstone the developer in the business of buying and selling mobile home parks for redevelopment isn't in the business of making their victims whole so if Wal-Mart wants the land, they should take responsibility or not buy the property.

Ike,

As a general rule, if you don't want to build houses, rent apartments, etc., then maybe you shouldn't buy land that's zoned residential. Sure, the owner and buyer have a right to petition for a change, but the city council has a right to turn it down. Caveat emptor.

As for the residents stopping it, well, as the article says: "Cornerstone Palm Springs told the Palm Beach Post that it's going to cover all the relocation costs for the families being evicted."

In other words, the company is willing to comply with the law, and therefore can evict the folks who live there. However, as currently zoned, no one (future buyer or current owner) can turn it into a shopping center.

If the owners and buyers comply with the law the former residents will have no actual legal recourse. Whether they're protesting a rezoning or a change to condos, etc., the former residents can still protest all they want. That's protected by the Constitution. Is there something wrong with Constitutionally protected behavior?

TMS,

A buyer who is not interested in renting apartments might buy residential land if they have reasonable belief that the property will be rezoned. That seems to be the case here, because the buyer (Walmart) already began the process of rezoning long ago. The buyer's assumptions were correct because the board voted unanimously to rezone the land to commercial.

We both agree that everything is fine, as long as the owners and the buyers have complied with the law. Apparently, they *have* complied with the law. That's sort of my point. The residents aren't upset about the rezoning, they are upset about moving. They don't care what is built after they leave, they just don't want to leave. They are trying to avoid moving by claiming that the Palm Springs Land Development Board illegally rezoned the property. Therefore, the complaint isn't against the owners or buyers, it's against the city. The legitimacy of that argument has not yet been proven and can't be determined from the contents of this article, so we should probably withhold our judgment.

I think we are mostly in agreement here. The protesters can complain all they want, but they still have to move as long as no laws were broken.