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Eminent Domain, Part Two: If Sugar Creek is Godzilla, She is Mothra

“The city of Sugar Creek is kind of like Godzilla,” Marth says. “Only it eats people’s houses and craps out parking lots.”

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er name is Penelope Marth.
But you can call her Mothra.
“The city of Sugar Creek is kind of like Godzilla,” Marth says. “Only it eats people’s houses and craps out parking lots.”
Marth lives at 528 S. Harris Ave. It’s a home whose front yard is overrun by clay gnomes and other oddball figurines all shrouded in snow. Above the gateway to the white picket fence that encompasses her property is an arbor comprised of nine different trees from her neighborhood – as if an omen left by a shaman.
For Marth, the ultimate fate of the trees, the land and the homes upon it clings to her like a musk.
She wears a white shirt that reads “Stop Eminent Domain Abuse.”
Nine months ago, Marth learned her home was in the crosshairs of a 225,000-square-foot retail center to be called Sugarland.
Since then, she has stood guard – not only over her own home, but the 33 other homes targeted for phase I of the Sugarland redevelopment.
Nearly five months after the city’s Board of Aldermen approved an ordinance that authorized the city to acquire property by eminent domain if “good faith negotiations… fail,” the number of unpurchased homes has been whittled to three.
Marth is one of those three.
“We’re a close-knit community,” Marth says. “I’m always willing to take up a cause I believe in and, in this case, it’s a cause I not only believe in, it’s a cause I live in.”

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ike a lot of homes in the small enclave along the northwest corner of U.S. 24 and Sterling Avenue, Marth’s home dates back several generations, to her great-grandfather, who built the structure in the 1920s alongside his son.
“It’s not unusual to find homes here that go back three, four, five and sometimes six generations,” Marth says. “My family isn’t the exception; it’s the rule.”
During the Depression, the home became a refuge of dirt broke relatives; two sets of Marth’s great aunts and great uncles stayed in the home.
“It was the home base of my mother’s side of the family,” Marth says.
Two doors down were Uncle Frank and Aunt Nugget, as she was known.
They had a pasture behind Marth’s home for chickens, cows and pigs. They also kept a garden.
“It was a family lease,” Marth says, “which means it was a lease without fees.”
The house would become a sanctuary of births and marriages; Marth’s mother was born in the house.

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arth and her parents settled in the home following the death of her grandparents.
“I come from a long line of squatters,” Marth says. “In other words, if you have a family home you’ve built you expect it to last generations.”
Almost immediately, Marth’s parents rehabilitated the property, expanding the back of the home to three levels.
Marth would spend all of her high school years at the home, where she became well-acquainted with the neighborhood.
Among those Marth knew well were Eleanor Miller’s children.
Marth remembers Miller’s youngest daughter growing attached to one of her great uncle’s pigs.
“She’d visit every day to pet the pig,” Marth says.
Then, one afternoon, the pig was no more.
It was due for the slaughterhouse.
“She was devastated,” Marth says. “That is, until my great uncle got another pig a few days later.”
Miller is another of the three homeowners left.

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arth and her parents moved out of the home only a few years after moving in.
Marth’s grandparents on her father’s side passed away, leaving a farm not far from Independence.
“My dad always wanted a place in the country,” Marth says.
So, for decades the home fell into the hands of an aunt and uncle. Then, in 1988, the home was handed off to Marth.
She’s lived there ever since.

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n the 20 years of her residency, Marth has inundated the home at 528 S. Harris with Bohemian flourishes.
It’s in the yard, it’s in the helter skelter interior and it’s in the elephantine studio where Marth paints murals and other works of art.
She busies herself as an artist, illustrator, hypnotherapist and Reiki Master Teacher.
In April of last year, Marth had just finished installing a new roof and was in the process of recarpeting her home. A home improvement loan was in the works.
Then she heard of Sugar Creek’s desire to build a retail center where her home lies. A study undertaken by the city found the property around Marth’s home blighted. The next conceivable step: condemnation proceedings.

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he area surrounding 528 S. Harris Avenue is already a war zone of splintered tree limbs and bulldozers.
“These other homes you see won’t be here much longer,” Marth says.
They are the shells of homes bought by the city.
“This wasn’t always a ghost town, you know,” Marth says.
For now, Marth is safe. Sugar Creek officials have repeatedly says they have no intention of using eminent domain to claim the three remaining homes.
They are still willing to negotiate a fair price.
But Marth fears “good faith negotiations” could be coming to a close.
“Bottom line: I’m not selling,” Marth says. “For as long as I have a right to my house, I won’t sell it.”
On her porch, a vanguard of American flags flap in the sharp winter wind.

Timeline:
2004 – The U.S. 24 Highway Corridor Market Study is completed by Canyon Research Southwest. It reveals the potential economic impact a retail center could have in Sugar Creek.
Aug. 27, 2007 – The city of Sugar Creek approves Ordinance No. 3149, which authorizes the use of eminent domain for the Sugarland redevelopment area.
Oct. 2, 2007 – Scott Bullock, senior attorney for the Institute of Justice, who argued the landmark eminent domain U.S. Supreme Court case Kelo v. New London, visits residents living in the Sugarland redevelopment area.
Jan. 17, 2008 – City of Arnold v. Tourkakis is argued before the Missouri Supreme Court. If the court rules in favor of Tourkakis – a dentist whose property is being targeted for a shopping center – non-charter cities, such as Sugar Creek, will not be allowed to invoke eminent domain to remove blight.

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