Elderly Homeowners Stand To Take Financial Beating, Then Get The Boot At Hands Of Eminent Domain-Invoking Local Government In One St. Louis Neighborhood

In St. Louis, Missouri, the St. Louis Business Journal reports:

• Bernice Richerson, 76, has lived for 50 years at 2516 Montgomery St. She raised her children in the 110-year-old house, with an appraised value of $10,000. “It’s a quiet neighborhood,” she said from her porch, which oversees a neatly manicured lawn.
  
  The city of St. Louis wants Richerson and her neighbors to make way for a new $1.6 billion headquarters for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which uses satellites to gather information for the Defense Department and employs 3,100 people at a facility near the Anheuser-Busch brewery. Richerson and 18 other owners, including controversial developer Paul McKee, are being threatened with eminent domain, a forced sale of properties that could wrap by late this year or early 2016.
  
  Richerson said she likely could not buy another home with the money being offered by the city, and would have to rent somewhere in north St. Louis County. “It’s not fair,” Richerson said. “I don’t have the energy to move.”
  
  Jocqualyn Holley has lived down the street with her husband and two kids for more than a year. Her 5,100-square-foot house, at 2544 Montgomery St., is targeted for eminent domain, though Holley said her landlord, Cardinal Properties of St Louis VII, would move her somewhere else.
  
  “This neighborhood right here is fine,” Holley said. “But a lot of these neighborhoods, if they need to tear them down, that’s fine,” she said, gesturing farther east into the proposed NGA site.
  
  If the wrecking ball does come, Holley said she did not know where her neighbors could go. Most, like Richerson, are elderly, Holley said.
  
  “They’ve been here for years,” she said. “Maybe some will go to the nursing home, maybe some with family.”
  
  Eighty-two-year-old James Spencer, of 2517 Benton St., said he will fight eminent domain. The city’s latest offer, about $116,000, isn’t enough, Spencer said. Another house he owns, at 2210 Benton St., is targeted for eminent domain. There are 29 in all — not including McKee’s, according to a resolution filed with the Board of Aldermen that would OK the condemnations.
  
  “Where am I going to get a house for that?” Spencer said, adding that the amount does not consider what he could rent the house for, about $700 a month. Still, he said he knows he can’t beat the city. “They ain’t going to offer what I want,” he said while sitting in a chair beside his fish tank.
  
  The city, which wants to retain the $2.4 million in annual tax revenue contributed by the NGA, says it has made good-faith offers to all homeowners in the site. It runs just south of St. Louis Avenue to the north; Jefferson Avenue and Parnell Avenue to the west; Cass Avenue to the south; and North 22nd Street to the east.
  
  Officials have said they may be willing to physically move certain houses. They also point out that much of the 100-acre site is vacant, with just 47 owner-occupied residences. Seven of those are currently targeted for eminent domain, but negotiations continue.
  
  Annie Mae Washington raised her five children — and some grandchildren — two houses west of Spencer’s, at 2521 Benton St. Although the neighborhood has changed over 42 years, she does not want to leave. Washington, like others interviewed Thursday, said the city’s latest offer wouldn’t allow her to buy another home, and she cannot make mortgage payments on a fixed income.
  
  “Me and my neighbors are holding out to see what happens,” Washington said. “Instead of trying to get us out, why can’t they build up around here?”
  
  “There’s room to build,” she said, looking toward empty fields with a view of the Gateway Arch.

Source: Elderly are targets of eminent domain in spy agency site.