Village of Mount Pleasant declares Foxconn area as blighted, may use eminent domain to take properties

More than four square miles of Mount Pleasant were declared Monday to be a blighted area, giving the Village Board further leverage to seize property by eminent domain for Foxconn Technology Group’s massive manufacturing complex and surrounding development.

Trustees voted 6-1 to declare as a blighted area some 2,800 acres of open farmland and a few dozen homes, all of it earmarked for Foxconn and the development expected to spring up around the planned electronics factory. Trustee Gary Feest was the lone dissenter, and one of only two board members to speak before the vote.

The board’s approval was expected, and most Foxconn-area homeowners either already have agreed to sell or will be subject to the use of eminent domain for road widening.

Still, holdouts remain — people who believe the 140 percent of market value the village has offered is unfair when owners of larger tracts of farmland were paid several times the pre-Foxconn price such property was bringing.

And Monday’s action likely will further sharpen the battle lines already drawn over the Foxconn project, which is lauded by proponents as an engine of economic transformation and criticized by detractors as a taxpayer-financed boondoggle and environmental threat.

“Tonight’s approval of the redevelopment plan is one more sign of progress toward Foxconn’s $10 billion, 22 million square foot advanced manufacturing campus,” Village President David DeGroot said in a statement.

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As proponents have in the past, DeGroot emphasized not the eminent-domain power the blighted-area designation gives the village, but rather the financial advantages the measure confers. Communities with plans such as the one Mount Pleasant just approved can finance the redevelopment by issuing bonds exempt from both state and federal taxes, which DeGroot said could save the village millions of dollars.

In taking its action Monday, the village is using a section of state law that broadly defines blighted areas. Besides the commonly understood definitions of blight — dilapidated housing, overcrowding, high crime — the statute says an area can be deemed blighted if it is predominantly open and, for any reason, “substantially impairs or arrests the sound growth of the community.”

The Foxconn factory is projected by the village to increase the property value of that area of Mount Pleasant nearly 80 times over and provide as many as 13,000 jobs.

But Feest said the statutes use the word “blighted” for a reason.

“Anyone who thinks ‘blighted’ has to be thinking there’s something wrong with the property,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with any of these properties. They are beautiful properties.”

“We’re using a technicality to forward the village’s interests,” Feest said. “I don’t agree with that.”

Also on hand Monday evening were a group of people planning a protest to coincide with the expected June 28 ceremonial groundbreaking for Foxconn and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Matt Flynn.

Flynn, a critic of the state’s Foxconn deal, which offers the company up to $3 billion in incentive payments, has said that if he is elected he will go to court seeking to have the contract declared illegal.

Monday, he said use of eminent domain to take property as Mount Pleasant envisions would provide further reason for a legal challenge.

“This is a disgusting display tonight by the board,” Flynn said. “It really reminds me of Chinese communism, in other words, come in and take the land, do whatever you want, and I think it’s a despicable thing.”

While Flynn and some other Democratic hopefuls have attacked the Foxconn deal, Republic Gov. Scott Walker and his supporters have said the project will deliver thousands of good-paying jobs and make Wisconsin a center for a new, high-tech industry.