Foxconn land dispute

Group opens new front after blight declaration

Racine County residents sue over area being declared ‘blighted.’

Opening a new front in the battle over Mount Pleasant’s declaration that the Foxconn area is blighted, a group of homeowners is asking a Racine County judge to overturn the village’s decision.

The blight designation, which paves the way for Mount Pleasant to take property by eminent domain, was “fraudulent, arbitrary and capricious” and contrary to Wisconsin law, the homeowners said in their complaint.

The case was filed in Racine County Circuit Court on Tuesday.

The Village Board in early June voted to declare 2,800 acres in the southwest corner of Mount Pleasant a blighted area. Most of the tract is open farmland. The area also includes dozens of homes on lots of a few acres or less.

In reaching its decision, the board cited a provision of Wisconsin’s Blight Elimination and Slum Clearance Act that says a “blighted area” can be an area that is predominantly open and “substantially impairs or arrests the sound growth of the community.”

Foxconn’s plans to build a 22-million-square-foot electronics factory employing thousands of people are expected to create a wave of development and significantly raise the value of property in the area.

The homeowners who are filing suit argue that the blight designation is illegal.

“If prime Wisconsin farmland and lovingly maintained rural residences can be declared blighted, and taken to sell or give to massive factories, then almost every inch of the State of Wisconsin is blighted, and capable of being seized by government at any time to be

sold, leased, or given to private companies,” the complaint alleges.

The real purpose of the blight designation is to give the village leverage in negotiating with small landowners, the lawsuit claims.

That goes to a key issue in the dispute.

To amass the sweeping tract of land needed to lure Foxconn to Mount Pleasant, the village last summer began offering $50,000 an acre to owners of large, open parcels if they would agree to sell. That is several times what area farmland was bringing before Foxconn came along.

With one notable holdout, the great majorincluding ity of the larger landowners signed on to the deal.

Then the village addressed the owners of the dozens of small parcels that for the most part hug the roads in the area. Those property owners were told the village would pay them 140 percent of fair market value.

That’s more than required by law, and it was enough to get many if not most of the homeowners to agree to sell. But some, the owners of the seven parcels involved in the latest lawsuit, believe they should receive more, citing the larger multiple that owners of open land have gotten.

In the complaint, the residents also pointed to the village’s purchase this month of a 1.8-acre parcel outside the blighted area, but needed for road expansion. That property, with a market value of $115,400, was purchased by the village for $784,000 — nearly seven times the market value, the complaint alleges.

The same homeowners bringing the action in Racine County Circuit Court lost an earlier case in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee. They have appealed that ruling.

A representative of Mount Pleasant was not available to react to the latest lawsuit.