## Facts

- Owners of two retail businesses operated a hardware store and a department store on Fourth Street, S.W., in Washington, D.C.
- Their properties were located within “Project Area B,” the first redevelopment project designated under the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act of 1945.
- The redevelopment program relied on comprehensive planning for Southwest Washington, including land-use allocations and provisions for housing, including low-rent housing.
- Project Area B was designated as a slum or blighted area for clearance and redevelopment pursuant to the Act.
- The redevelopment scheme contemplated public acquisition of land and later disposition (sale or lease) to private parties for redevelopment consistent with the approved plan.

## Issues

1. Whether condemnation of private property to eliminate slums and redevelop the area, with later transfer to private developers, satisfies the Fifth Amendment “public use” requirement.
2. Whether the Act’s criteria for identifying “substandard” or “blighted” areas and authorizing redevelopment provided sufficient standards to avoid an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power.
3. Whether the Act could be applied to parcels that were allegedly sound commercial properties within the project area, or whether condemnations must be confined to property that is itself substandard.

## Decision

- The three-judge district court upheld the Redevelopment Act of 1945 as constitutional on its face.
- The court held that slum elimination and prevention are legitimate public purposes that can support the use of eminent domain.
- The court rejected the argument that the takings were unconstitutional merely because the property could later be transferred to private parties.
- The court held that the Act contained sufficiently definite standards (including definitions tied to substandard housing conditions) to guide administrative action.
- The court construed the Act to require a reasonable relation between the condemnation and slum-clearance objectives, cautioning that the Act did not authorize takings solely to modernize or redevelop areas that were merely old or economically obsolete.

## Legal Principles

- A taking satisfies “public use” when it serves a legitimate public purpose such as eliminating or preventing slums, even if the land is later conveyed to private redevelopers under a comprehensive plan.
- The constitutionality of such takings turns on the public objective of the program as a whole, not solely on the identity of the post-taking user.
- Statutory terms directing redevelopment action are valid if they provide adequate standards to guide agencies and allow judicial review of whether the designated area meets those standards.
- Condemnation authority under slum-clearance legislation is not unlimited; takings must be reasonably related and reasonably necessary to the statutory public purpose and cannot rest only on a desire for redevelopment in non-blighted areas.

## Conclusion

The court sustained the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act and the Project Area B program as a valid exercise of eminent domain for a public purpose, while emphasizing that condemnations must remain tied to genuine blight and the statutory objectives of slum clearance and prevention rather than redevelopment for its own sake.


Schneider v. District of Columbia, 117 F. Supp. 705 (D.D.C. 1953)