CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

July 15, 1965

Page 16940

Mr. TYDINGS. . . . To be sure, some hardships are inevitable if we are to redevelop our slum neighborhoods. Some inconvenience cannot be avoided if we are to renew our decaying cities. I do not think we should allow these considerations to block progress. I support urban renewal for our cities.

But I firmly believe that we owe a moral obligation to the families and small businesses that have to be relocated to minimize the burdens and to make them as whole as possible.

The present law provides relocation payments for families and reimbursement of moving expenses for businesses. I am pleased that the pending bill will increase the relocation payment from $1,500 to $2,500, and that the Committee report strongly urges the Urban Renewal Administration to remove the $25,000 ceiling on reimbursement of business moving expenses.

These are both useful improvements in the administration of our relocation programs.

However, all existing and proposed relocation programs fail to meet the needs of those businesses which, for all practical purposes, cannot be relocated. Take the candy store owner to whom I referred earlier. What can he do at age 65 with a $2,500 relocation payment and a few hundred dollars moving expense? Where can he go and set up a neighborhood candy store? Where can he become an integral part of a community?

Let us be honest. In the case of our candy store owner, urban renewal did not result in his relocation. It put him out of business. It cut off his source of income as effectively as if his business had been condemned.

I think we should provide for such cases in our urban renewal program. The amendment which I have introduced is limited in scope. It would provide the owners of small neighborhood

businesses with a lump-sum cash payment, in lieu of relocation and moving expenses, which would be equal to the average annual earnings of that business for the past 3 years. If, for example, the candy store operator to which I have referred had an average annual income of $5,000, he would be entitled, under my amendment, to receive a lump-sum payment of $15,000. This would be in lieu of his $2,500 relocation payment and moving expenses.

This amendment is also limited in its applicability. In order to qualify for the foregoing payment, an owner located in an urban renewal project would have to meet the following four tests:

First. He would have to be 50 years of age or older.

Second. He would have had to be a tenant and not an owner of the property in which his business was located.

Third. His average annual net earnings for the preceding 3 years would have had to be less than $10,000 per year, and--

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, I yield myself 4 additional minutes.

Fourth. His business would have to be of such character that it could not be located without "a substantial loss of its existing patronage."

In essence, this amendment would apply only to the small, "Mom and Pop” neighborhood store in which the owners were over 50 years of age, earned less than $10,000, and rented their place of business.

I think the lump-sum payment which I have suggested is modest in amount and wholly consistent with our moral obligations to alleviate the hardships imposed by urban renewal progress.

The cost of this amendment would be low. The Urban Renewal Administration advises me that approximately 6,000 business establishments are relocated every year as a result of our urban renewal programs. Approximately 30 percent of these establishments go out of business. These are, for the most part, the small marginal business and neighborhood stores. We are thus dealing with a group of not more than 1,800 businesses, and a large number of these people will not meet the requirements of my amendment. .

An educated estimate by a high official of the Urban Renewal Administration is that not more than 1,000 businesses per year would qualify under this amendment. If we assume the average annual earnings of these 1,000 businesses to be $7,000 per year -- a relatively high figure considering the $10,000 ceiling in my amendment -- we would be paying an average of $21,000 to each of these 1,000 businesses estimated or a total of $21 million. I think this is a small sum, in relation to our total urban renewal program. The present bill increases the capital grants for urban renewal by $2.9 billion.

The distinguished Senator from Maine [Mr. MUSKIE] is holding hearings on the subject of revision of relocation payments applicable to all Federal programs which require families or businesses to move. I ask the distinguished Senator from Maine whether his committee will act on the problem which has been referred to in my amendment. I invite any additional remarks that he might like to make on the subject. For that purpose I yield to him as much time as he may require.

Mr. MUSKIE. I thank the Senator from Maryland.

First, the select House subcommittee has recently completed and made available to the Congress what I consider to be an outstanding study of the problem which troubles so many people who have seen dislocation hardships resulting from government acquisition of land, whether it be local, State, or Federal government, and for whatever program.

The compensation is inadequate. My own view is that, subject to such safeguards as are necessary to avoid abuses, we ought to make people whole, to whatever degree it is necessary to make them whole, when we force them to move for reasons other than their voluntary wishes.

Pursuant to the select subcommittee's study, the distinguished Senator from Alabama [Mr. SPARKMAN] introduced this year Senate bill 1201, which would undertake to reform our policy with respect to relocation payments, and also with respect to our land acquisition policies and practices. It is a monumental work, deserving very careful attention. I myself introduced Senate bill 1681, which has to do only with dislocation payments. We have been holding hearings on both bills during the last 2 weeks. The possibility that we can get legislation on the relocation aspect of the problem, which is the one which the Senator is interested in, looks very good for this year, depending upon what happens at this session of the Congress and how far we are able to work out the case in the proposed legislation.

It is most appropriate that the Senator should bring up the point now. The present colloquy will be of great value and utility to the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, as it controls proposed legislation as to which we have had hearings.

Mr. TYDINGS. I do not wish to burden the housing bill with additional amendments. With the assurances of the distinguished Senator from Maine that the problem will be taken up in the appropriate subcommittee, and that action will, if possible, be taken this year, and with his cognizance of the extreme importance of this problem to the small shopkeeper in the community, I withdraw my amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has the right to withdraw his amendment. If all time is yielded back, the amendment is withdrawn.