Imagine a country where the government can seize your property against your will and give it to another private entity. If you’re thinking this is a dark land in some third world country, guess again. The country I am referring to is the United States and the process they use to take one’s property 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 know that under a process called eminent domain, the government can (and does) seize private property for public use, such as the construction of a highway, a school, or a courthouse. But did you know that the government can also seize your land for private use if you can prove 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 property taxes than the buildings they are replacing.
In recent years, some governments have moved 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 become more valuable if it were developed in a different way, and is therefore in danger of being expropriated.
This process is becoming a nationwide epidemic with more than 10,000 documented cases of the government taking property from one person to another in the last five years.
One particular case that comes to mind was Lakewood, Ohio, where the town wanted to exercise eminent domain over an entire residential neighborhood so they could build a luxury condominium development on that land. The scope of this action included 55 single-family homes, several apartment buildings, and more than a dozen businesses.
To legally invoke eminent domain, the city had to certify that the area was “devastated.” They then established a criterion that defined any house within the neighborhood as “blighted” if it did not have three bedrooms, two bathrooms, an attached two-car garage, and central air conditioning. The owners banded 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 should be put in place to protect the citizens of this country from losing their property for economic reasons rather than the public good.
