Construction at the Ford BlueOval City site in Tennessee is well underway at this point as the future EV and EV battery plant begins to take shape. Long touted as a community-boosting project that will create thousands of jobs in an area that desperately needs them, BlueOval City has also faced its fair share of detractors and other controversies, which is common for any massive manufacturing plant. The latest bit of backlash over the state-backed project comes from a group of local farmers, according to the Tennessee Lookout.
Since Ford announced BlueOval City would be located in Haywood County, land values have skyrocketed from around $10,000 per acre, with a 70-acre parcel currently listed for a whopping $14.5 million. Problem is, the state is offering local farmers far less than market value for their land, with one – Marvin Sanderlin – noting that the Tennessee Department of Transportation is willing to pay him just $37,500 for the 10 acres he owns that it needs to connect BlueOval City to the Interstate 40.
“That’s unheard of,” Sanderlin said. “You can’t buy no land here for $3,500 an acre. You can’t buy a swamp here for $3,500. “I told them this is the biggest ripoff there is. They want your land, but they don’t want you to participate in the wealth.”
Sanderlin isn’t alone in a rural community full of African American farmers, many of whom have kept their land in the same family for generations to this point. Altogether, the state is looking to acquire 35 different tracts of land either by purchase or eminent domain, which will be used to build build new roads. Thus far, it has taken possession of 15 of them, and remains in negotiations with the other property owners, while some – like Sanderlin – are being sued by the state.
“It’s been our heritage,” said retired school teacher Ray Jones, who owns an acre of land the state is after that has been in his family for a century. “It’s been passed down for 100 years. And now they want to run right through it. My whole beef? All the people are benefiting from BlueOval and that’s good. We are 100 percent in support of BlueOval. Make sure you quote me on that. But then you want to take my spring and give me pennies on it? It’s an unreasonable situation.”
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Comments
Emanate Domain was NEVER intended to help a business, it was meant to improve a cities infrastructure for the BENEFIT of it’s population NOT Ford ! Ford should pay these people full value not the city/county with TAX PAYER FUNDS! That’s BS Ford! B S !
Indeed, the law has been subverted by businesses and is an accepted practice. As good as the company I used to work for they did the same thing in New York, they used imminent domain to purchase land far below market value and when employees and other people called them out on it they waved it away by saying “our competitors are doing and we would be crazy if we didn’t do it to”.
The article says the eminent domain land is for state/county roads, not for Ford’s plant
The roads are for the plant.
Its happening everywhere, sometimes in smaller developments. They call them TIF developments. it diverts future tax revenue to pay for infrastructure and even eminent domain takeovers.
This is a bad deal for the land owners, while they agree that the plant is good they just want fair treatment.
I worked with a company that needed to purchase land for utility transmission lines and their practice was to go back to make everyone “whole” in the event that the last land owner got more/unit of property so there was no incentive to get an attorney or hold out
ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF BIG BUSINESS AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TAKING ADVANTAGE OF PEOPLE TO FORCE AN AGENDA ON THE MASSES. THAT AGENDA IS THE EV BUSINESS. EVERYONE CAN’T AFFORD EVS AND THE INFRACTURE IS LACKING. REGARDLESS FORD SHOULD PAY CURRENT PRICE FOR THE LAND SINCE THEY ARE PROFITTING.