Stealing This Land: Is Eminent Domain Always In The Public Interest?

Imagine a country where the government can 16 your property against your will and give it to another private entity. If you are thinking that this is an unknown land in some third world country, try again. The country I’m referring to is the United States and the process they use to take ownership of you is called eminent domain.

What is eminent domain? In short, it is the right of a government to sixteen private properties for public use, in exchange for payment of fair market value. Fair market value can be defined as the highest price someone would pay for the property, if it were in the hands of a willing seller. But what if you didn’t want to sell at any price?

Most people are aware that under a process called eminent domain, the government can (and does) sixteen private properties for public use, such as building a highway, a school, or a courthouse. But did you know that the government can also 16 land for private use if they can show that doing so will serve “the public good”?

Across the country, cities have been forcing people off their land, so private developers can build more expensive homes, condos and office buildings that will pay more in property taxes than the buildings they are replacing.

In recent years, some governments have tended to exercise eminent domain for the benefit of developers or commercial interests, on the grounds that anything that increases the value of a given piece of land is a sufficient public good. Given that broad definition, almost any property could be made more valuable if it is developed in a different way and therefore runs the risk of being expropriated.

This process is becoming a nationwide epidemic with more than 10,000 documented cases of governments taking property from one person and turning it over to another in the past five years.

One particular case that comes to mind was Lakewood, Ohio, where the city wanted to exercise eminent dominance over an entire residential neighborhood so that a luxury condominium development could be built on that lot. The scope of this action included 55 single-family homes, several apartment buildings, and more than a dozen businesses.

In order to legally invoke eminent domain, the city had to certify that the area was “ruined.” They then set a criterion that defined any home within the neighborhood as “ruined” if it didn’t have three bedrooms, two bathrooms, an attached two-car garage, and central air conditioning. The owners came together and ultimately defeated the proposed development project.

As this trend continues, we must be aware of the potential for abuse when invoking eminent domain. I believe that stricter procedures are needed to protect the citizens of this country against the loss of their property for economic reasons and not for the public good.