Twelve states – Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon and South Carolina – held ballot initiatives regarding eminent domain in the recent elections.
The results were mixed, but nine states voted to put restrictions on eminent domain in various ways.
In Arizona, the ballot proposed an amendment to the State Constitution to prohibit the use of eminent domain to take property for private projects. The ballot stated that “the state and municipal governments of Arizona consistently encroach on the rights of private citizens to own and use their property, requiring the State to redress in our state and federal courts which have not always adequately protected private property rights…”
Their ballot gave several examples.
“The City of Mesa used eminent domain to acquire and bulldozes homes for a redevelopment project that included a hotel and water park. After the developer’s financing fell through the project was abandoned and the property left vacant.”
“The City of Mesa filed comdemnation actions against Randy Bailey, to take his family-owned brake shop, and Patrick Dennis to take his auto-body shop, so that local business owners could relocate and expand a hardware store and an appliance store.”
“The City of Tempe instituted an eminent domain action to condemn the home of Kenneth and Mary Ann Pillow in order to transfer their property to a private developer who planned to build upscale townhomes.”
The amendment that passed also requires that when eminent domain is used to take property for public projects, just compensation must be made to the property owners.
In California, voters rejected their ballot initiative. It would have prohibited the taking of property to give it to a private entity for development. It would have also prohibited taking properties in blighted areas that weren’t blighted, and would have prevented the taking of private property to promote a development specifically for the purpose of enhancing sales tax revenues.
That ballot mentioned a case regarding the Filipino Baptist Church in Long Beach, which had been threatened with condemnation and the taking of their property using eminent domain. It was one of several churches that Long Beach had threatened to take.
The other two states that failed to pass their votes on restricting eminent domain were Idaho and Montana. In Montana, the initiative was removed from the ballot by the Supreme Court before citizens even got a chance to vote on it.
All of the nine states that passed their initiatives either voted to prohibit or restrict the use of eminent domain to acquire property for private projects. Only Arizona passed an initiative that would require compensation for regulatory takings.
In Nevada, property owners will be given more rights to fight the taking of their property by eminent domain. The government doing the taking must provide all of the appraisals of the property to the owner, whereas under current law, they are not required to furnish them until after the property is taken. Judges will also be given the ability to award court costs and attorney fees to property owners even if they lose their court battle to keep their property. Property owners will also be allowed to request that a jury decide if their property is being taken for a “public” use or not. Finally, takings of private property to be given to casino developers will be absolutely forbidden.
In Oregon, the government agency doing the taking will now be required to pay for the property owner’s legal fees if the property owner is willing to sell but does not accept the amount offered to them. They will have the right to ask the court decide the selling price without fearing the legal costs.
Despite the measured success in this past election, we still have a long way to go in preventing the abuse of eminent domain. It is still a very specific threat to churches, especially as cities begin to adopt the more dense zoning of New Urbanism that limits development. This movement creates a shortage of land for new churches or churches that want to expand, and also targets properties that don’t contribute to the tax base.
For the sake of future churches, we cannot afford to go to sleep at the wheel on this issue.