Feds are pressing local governments to evict homeowners from flood zones
WASHINGTON — The federal government is giving local officials nationwide a painful choice: Agree to use eminent domain to force people out of flood-prone homes, or forfeit a shot at federal money they need to combat climate change.
That choice, part of an effort by the Army Corps of Engineers to protect people from disasters, is facing officials from the Florida Keys to the New Jersey coast, including Miami; Charleston, S.C.; and Selma, Ala. Local governments seeking federal money to help people leave flood zones must first commit to pushing out people who refuse to move.
In one city in the heartland, the letters have already started going out.
Last year, Giovanni Rodriguez, whose white midcentury house backs onto a creek in the southern suburbs of Nashville, Tenn., got a letter saying his home “is eligible for participation in a floodplain home buyout program.” The surprise came a few lines lower: If necessary, the city “would acquire properties through the use of eminent domain.”
Rodriguez, a 39-year-old freelance musician and composer of funk, R&B and Latin jazz, said he had no interest in selling — at least not for what the city is offering, which he said wasn’t much more than the $188,500 he paid for the home in 2013. “I would lose this house that I love,” he said.
Eminent domain — the government’s authority to take private property, with compensation, for public use — has long been viewed as too blunt a tool for getting people out of disasterprone areas. It has a controversial history: Local governments have used it to tear down African-American neighborhoods, as well as to build freeways and other projects over residents’ objections. Even when the purpose of eminent domain is seen as legitimate, elected officials are generally loath to evict people.
Still, in a sign of how serious the threat of climate change has become, some local governments have told the Corps that they will do so if necessary, according to documents obtained through public records requests and interviews with officials. Other cities have yet to decide, saying they feel torn between two bad options.
The willingness to use eminent domain shows how quickly the discussion around climate has shifted. Even as President Donald Trump publicly dismisses the scientific consensus of climate change, his administration is wrestling with how to move people out of the way of rising seas and increasingly intense rainfall.
Still, threatening to push people out of their houses is an extreme step, experts said.
“It’s going to create a really big political backlash,” said A.R. Siders, a professor at the University of Delaware who studies buyouts. Still, she praised the Corps for “recognizing that the degree of action we’re taking needs to match the degree of the crisis.”
The Corps’ mission includes protecting Americans from flooding and coastal storms. It does that in different ways, including building sea walls, levees and other protections and by elevating homes. The Corps generally pays twothirds of the cost, which can stretch into billions of dollars. The local government usually pays the rest.
As the risk of damage grows because of climate change, the Corps has shifted toward paying local governments to buy and demolish homes at risk of flooding. The logic is that the only surefire way to guarantee the homes won’t flood again is if they no longer exist. But it also uproots people and can destroy communities.
As a result, federally funded buyouts have usually been voluntary; residents could decline. But at the end of 2015, the Corps said voluntary programs were “not acceptable” and that all future buyout programs “must include the option to use eminent domain, where warranted.”
The Corps defended its policy. Without using eminent domain, officials said, the agency can’t guarantee to Congress that the buyouts that lawmakers have funded will happen.
The Corps applies a relatively simple formula to decide which houses should be condemned, officials said. It estimates how much damage a house is likely to suffer in the next 50 years, then compares that to what it would cost to buy and tear down the house, plus moving expenses for the owner. If the buyout costs less, the homeowner is asked to sell for the assessed value of the home. That price is not negotiable, and neither is the offer.
Many officials have balked, at least for now. Miami-Dade County has yet to agree to evict residents, and New Jersey has refused. In the Florida Keys, Roman Gastesi, the county administrator, said he doubted that county commissioners would approve it.
“Eminent domain is not something that’s going to be palatable,” Gastesi said, adding that the Corps should fund the buyout program it’s currently looking at in the Keys but make it voluntary. “We don’t want to kick people out of their houses.”
But local officials in other communities have been willing to accept the Corps’ terms.
Brookhaven, a town on Long Island in New York, agreed in 2018 to use eminent domain if necessary as part of a Corps plan to protect against flooding, according to James D’Ambrosio, a Corps spokesman. A spokesman for Brookhaven, Jack Krieger, referred questions to the Suffolk County government, which didn’t respond.
One of the first locales to invoke the threat of eminent domain is Nashville, where the Corps identified 44 homes it wanted the city to buy. Some homeowners have said no.
Down the road from Rodriguez, Homer Adams, who is 98, said the city had approached him about buying his house. But he said he and his wife, Wilma, who is 97, want to stay and were under the impression that the program left them free to do so. “It was completely voluntary,” Adams said.
The city, however, said every resident selected for the buyout got the same letter, saying eminent domain would be used if the city thought it was necessary.
Craig Carrington, chief of project planning for the Corps’ Nashville district, said his office wasn’t giving the city a deadline for evicting people. “We knew that this would take several years,” Carrington said. “We’re trying to eat the elephant one bite at a time.”