Eminent Domain

Eminent Domain - The power of a Federal, State or Local governing authority to take one's property for "the public good".

Despite the pleas by the menacing alliance of tax-hungry municipalities and land-hungry developers to do nothing, legislators across the country are quickly moving to fix their abysmal eminent domain laws. The problem of eminent domain abuse was highlighted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s dreadful decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which gave governments the green light to take your home or business and give it to a politically connected private developer because that developer might be able to produce more taxes and more jobs off of your land.

The original intent of eminent domain was to take one's property for a public purpose- for a new road, a new park, schools etc.

Eminent Domain pwoer was then used to remove "blighted" or run-down properties in urban areas - to remove drug users, land speculators who cared little about their buildings etc. Early on, the land or buildings would be taken over by a municipality and sold off at a public auction or given to a charity who would rehab the building.

Next came the developers. As land in omst of the US becomes scarce, developers of apartments, luxury condos, shopping plazas etc have beenn able to coerce struggling towns to use their power of eminent domain to begin eminent domain proceedings to build exactly what they (the developers) propose.

Some of these ideas are truly hopefully to an area, in other cases, it is a way for the developer to assembly a large enough piece of land to redevelop.

The property owners are to receive "fair compensation" - often at a depressed price and not the potential had the area not been blighted. Sometimes, the local government has been accused of creating the same blight they want to renew.