This land is your land revised

Woody Guthrie wrote:

"This land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York Island..."

It is a nice sentiment but the truth is that what we would like to think of as "our" land isn't.  Not when someone else has been able to purchase it.

There is an article in today's Los Angeles Times titled "A wealthy developer owns a rare plot of green in a very crowded part of L.A. What does he owe his neighbors?"

The article is about Liberty Park, a very rare swath of green in the densely developed Koreatown area.

The owner of the land wants to build a 36 story residential and commercial tower.  In a city where housing is desperately needed, is that a bad thing?  The people who live in the area think so, because the area is "park- poor" as described in the article.  The City of Los Angeles designated the park as a historical-cultural monument, preventing developing the property.  

If the city wants a park, it needs to buy up the land to create one.  Considering that a fair valuation of the land might be between $75 million and $100 million, they don't have the money.  So everyone wants to punish the owner of the land and force him to keep his private property as a park because there are no public parks in the area.  Is this fair?

This isn't the same situation as that involving Vinod Khosla, the billionaire owner of Martins Beach in San Mateo County.  There is a state law guaranteeing access to the coastline to all.  That's not the same as taking one person's private property without due process.  If the city feels the need to provide a park, the Takings Clause of the Constitution calls for "just compensation" if private property is taken for public use.

I'm in favor of parks and providing them for the populace.  But not in this way.