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Redevelopment deal was broken, community says
The St. Louis American
March 9-15, 2000
By lshmael Lateef Ahmad
St. Louis American Senior Writer
Kinloch is again suing St. Louis, hoping to stop the buying of homes under a program that clears residential areas, from the noisy flight paths of jets.
The skirmish is the latest in a 20-year saga over Lambert Field's federal buyout program that has drained the small city of three-fourths of its population. Kinloch sued in 1993 over the same issue, and the two cities settled in 1995.
Kinloch's leaders say St. Louis has not honored that settlement. Kinloch expected St. Louis and the airport authority to sell back land they emptied of houses so that Kinloch could develop light industry and commerce there.
Instead, the community may be facing extinction in exchange for political and financial gain on the part of St. Louis and its sprawling St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
The lawsuit alleges that Airport Director Leonard Griggs has taken Kinloch property, refused to let Kinloch officials develop it and has no intention of returning it to Kinloch.
Also, St. Louis officials have purchased land outside a noise abatement zone, beyond the requirements of the federal noise abatement funds. These unauthorized purchases were made in parts of northern Kinloch and in areas previously slated for residential development under the "Kinloch Tomorrow" plan.
Since the 1970s the larger St. Louis has purchased about 75 percent of Kinloch, producing a loss in property tax income (municipalities don't pay taxes) and a massive reduction in population, said Kinloch City Attorney Al Johnson. He called it a "modern version of block busting," accusing St. Louis and airport officials of doing everything they can to turn Kinloch into an eyesore and force residents to sell their homes away.
Block busting is a real estate tactic sales agents sometimes use that plays on the fears of frightened whites to get them to sell their homes as blacks began moving into their neighborhoods. The fear this time is the alleged St. Louis-sponsored blight.
"They're trying to depopulate Kinloch," Johnson said, just days after Kinloch officials filed a lawsuit in the hopes of saving their town. "They're expanding the airport westward (toward Bridgeton). If they are expanding east, they have not told us about it. There is no legitimate purpose for buying-out Kinloch."
Mike Donatt, communications manager for the airport, said their legal department received service of the lawsuit on Wednesday and lacking a detailed examination of the document, was not in a position to comment at press time.
In the beginning, city fathers hoped to solve a noise problem for its residents.
In the late 1970s St. Louis officials approached Kinloch officials to talk. Noise abatement buy-out began. St. Louis gave Kinloch $2 million as part of a plan to buy homes and convert southwest Kinloch residential to a light industrial use.
"They said ‘We're not here to hurt you. We're here to help you, Johnson said. "When in fact, they have not helped Kinloch."
The southwestern portion of Kinloch is located near interstates 70 and 170 and the airport's main east-west runway. As the airport grew, the airplanes got bigger, louder and more numerous. "Our residents were unhappy with that," Johnson said.
Since 1982 more than 100 pieces of residential property have been purchased by the airport as part of a federally financed buyout, ostensibly for noise abatement purposes and in areas of 75 or more decibels.
In return for buying the land, St. Louis officials agreed to let the smaller Kinloch continue to exist, by relocating displaced residents to the northeast portion if Kinloch and redeveloping the noise-affected southwest area with commercial development as part of the "Kinloch Tomorrow" initiative.
In their lawsuit, Kinloch officials are asking a St. Louis County Circuit Court judge to order St. Louis officials to immediately comply with the "Kinloch Tomorrow" contract; ban the further acquisition of property outside the original southwest Kinloch noise abatement area; create a plan to redevelop and return to Kinloch the original noise abatement property; and pay Kinlock monetary damages, including $10 million in punitive damages for "willful, wanton and malicious" efforts to run away black Kinloch residents.
Also, St. Louis officials are being charged with being in violation of Kinloch housing and building codes with respect to deteriorating airport-owned properties in Kinloch. They are being asked to comply with the codes and then sell back the property to Kinloch; and asked that other property purchases outside the noise abatement zone be given back to Kinloch or compensation given to the smaller city at full market value.
By letting the purchased buildings deteriorate, St. Louis officials have fostered depopulation and created an air of hopelessness in the small town, thus encouraging the flight of the remainder of Kinloch's 500 residents, alleges Kinloch Mayor Keith Conway. If the scenario continues, Kinloch may be forced to unincorporate.
"We are here to fight for the survival and rebuilding of Kinloch, whose existence is threatened by the reprehensible acts of the City of St. Louis and airport officials," Conway said Sunday. "St. Louis is trying to take over all of Kinloch and profit from its future commercially valuable land. And, they almost got away with it. They tried to drive our people out of Kinloch. Now it is our turn to drive them out of Kinloch."
Altogether, St. Louis now owns between 350-400 parcels of the city's approximately 500 parcels of land, Johnson said. If St. Louis is buying up Kinloch, that was not part of the deal struck by Kinloch officials, he said.
Johnson called it a "massive federally financed land grab which had the effect to ruin a black community." He estimates that between $50 million and $60 million in federal government money has been spent by airport officials to buy up homes in southwest Kinloch, relocate residents into newly built homes in northeast Kinloch and then, years later, go back to northeast Kinloch and offer those relocated residents money to buy their new homes from them and then "tear the new homes down," Johnson said.
"We don't want a bunch of vacant land," the city lawyer said. "We want people there."
Kinloch was incorporated in 1948. In 1980 it had a population of 4,455. By 1990 the number of residents had dropped to 2,702. Currently, barely 500 people are thought to remain in the city.