Today, the Ohio State Supreme Court delivered a victory to all Americans who thought that their property was safe from eminent domain, when in fact they weren’t.
The case centers around Rookwood Developers, who went to the City of Norwood, Ohio, and asked for a block of land that contained 71 homes. Five of the homeowners refused to sell and were taken to court.
A lower court ruled in favor of the City of Norwood, but three of the five holdouts decided to keep fighting, appealing the case to the state Supreme Court.
The case, which has taken three years to litigate, was finally concluded with a lengthy decision that was unanimous.
The Ohio Supreme Court resoundly rejected the decision of the US Supreme Court in the now infamous Kelo v. New London case. Ironically, this was possible because in that case the US Supreme Court gave the states the right to provide greater protection from eminent domain abuse.
The Ohio Supreme Court also said in their decision that lower courts must use a “heightened scrutiny” when hearing eminent domain cases, especially when it involves taking property from an individual and giving it to another private party.
Perhaps the most significant portion of the decision is that they stated that in taking land under eminent domain, the reason given for the taking cannot be vague.
In the Norwood case, the developer offered to pay for a study of the area which, not surprisingly, declared the area to be blighted, even though it acknowledged that none of the 77 homes were dilapidated or behind in their property taxes.
In the initial presentation to the homeowners, the City of Norwood and the developer made it clear that anyone who did not sell to them would be taken to court and their property would be taken by eminent domain, which is exactly what they did to the holdouts.
The City of Norwood has suffered economically since 1987 when General Motors closed a manufacturing plant there. Norwood is landlocked by the city of Cincinnati. It is attempting to rebuild its economy and saw the development of the area as something that could do that.
The houses that were taken in the initial buyout were immediately removed, until only the three holdout’s remained. Those three took the City of Norwood and the developer to the state’s Supreme Court. A court order prevented the homes from being destroyed pending the Supreme Court decision, even though the developer had already secured the titles to the homes.
In November of last year, the governor of Ohio, Bob Taft, signed into law a bill that placed a moratorium on eminent domain takings of unblighted property for economic reasons. The moratorium will expire in December of this year.
The plight of the homeowners in Norwood is not unusual in America. In an article in Newsweek, George Will wrote, “From 1998 to 2002, state and local governments seized or threatened to seize more than 10,000 homes, businesses, churches and pieces of land, not for “public use” but to enrich private interests, some of whose enhanced riches can be siphoned away by taxes. Such legalized theft – theft by government – does not use a gun, it just abuses the power of eminent domain. And it was declared constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Kelo v. New London last year.”
Though it is a big victory to see the Ohio Supreme Court deliver a decision that will serve as a precedent for other cases, we have a very long way to go to prevent the abuse of eminent domain. Until there is enough political and grass roots resistance, it will continue to be seen as an easy way for developers and tax-collecting governments to make money.
Unfortunately, churches may be the last ones to benefit from the resistance. Church property will remain a tempting target because they pay no property taxes. Homes and businesses will be less attractive because the net amount of increased taxes received from their taking may not be as much as could be gained by taking church property. As such, Christians need to be making their voices heard on the issue, and should be involved in government to the extent that they can affect policy and be in a position to protect churches.
In the meantime, we should be very grateful to the judges on the Ohio Supreme Court for having the courage to be the first to say that enough is enough.