Charlie Birnbaum and Eminent Domain

state agency: Since 2012, his property has been the target of a state agency that aims to use eminent domain to demolish his three-story property to build a yet-to-be-announced tourism village the state says will revitalize the economically struggling area, according to CNN. The state has put up $238,500 for the property, but Birnbaum refuses to give it up until a court orders him out. The home, an aging but well-kept relic of Atlantic City once-thriving past, is owned by 68-year-old Charlie Birnbaum, who has worked as a piano tuner for local casinos for more than 30 years. And has been fighting for three years to keep it. It comes as the 10th anniversary approaches of the landmark Kelo U.S. Supreme Court decision, in which the court controversially allowed the city of New London, Connecticut, to use eminent domain to tear down an entire neighborhood as part of a plan to benefit Pfizer, a pharmaceutical company. While New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority has a general plan for the neighborhood revitalization, it has not stated specifically how Birnbaum property will be used, a fact on which Birnbaum has made his stand. "For three years I've been asking, if you're going to take these memories from me, what are you going to put here And the answer I got is, 'We don't know yet,'" Birnbaum told CNN. "That not good enough for me." The battle raises serious questions about the appropriate use of eminent domain, in which a state or federal government pays to seize property from a private owner for public use, a power that is enshrined -- but restricted -- in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.