The City Hall Landlord Problem
When Tacoma condemned land for a street project, it ended up in the house-moving business.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Tacoma is now in the real estate business. It has one house and part of another house. In a recent condemnation suit for North 35th Street, the city took a new $1,200 cottage erected by G. D. McQuoid. This place will have to be moved out of the street. It also acquired nearly the entire home of James Thomas. It cost about $3,000 to build this piece of a house. Thomas was given the option by the court to take the whole house and move it off the street, allowing the city $1,600 for its share, or to take the money. He took the money. Now the city will have to saw the house in two, take its share, and move it away.
“If you cannot buy a whole house, the city can furnish half of one and give you the right to go out and saw off what you want with a cross-cut saw.”
Tacoma's struggle with eminent domain and urban planning is as old as the city itself. While today's debates often focus on high-density rezoning, a century ago, the physical reality of slicing buildings to widen streets was a literal, mechanical civic headache.
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