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Lawmakers urged to tighten laws on eminent domain

Attorney pushes amendment over current proposals

April M. Washington, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 24, 2006 at midnight

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Colorado legislators were urged Monday to push a constitutional amendment to tighten eminent domain laws that allow local governments to condemn private property for economic development.

Dana Berliner, an attorney who has argued property rights cases before the U.S. Supreme court, said the current flurry of bills aimed at eminent domain in the legislature won't get the job done as well as a constitutional amendment.

"It's going to be up to the state legislatures and voters to change the laws to protect people because there is nothing left," said Berliner, who gave a noon briefing on the high court's ruling last June that green-lighted eminent domain condemnations.

Berliner was in Denver as a guest of the Golden-based Independence Institute, a conservative think tank.

Eminent domain condemnation has become a hot topic in Colorado because of the proposed "Super Slab" toll road along the Front Range and other controversial projects.

Berliner described the retaliation against the Supreme Court ruling by one New Hampshire activist group. It has gathered signatures to place a question on the ballot that asks voters whether the city of Wear, N.H., should condemn the 200-year-old wooden farmhouse owned by Justice David Souter and build a hotel.

Wear is Souter's hometown.

"It's a shock to most Americans that their homes and property are not their own," said Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, "that their home could be given to a private developer. They're starting to fight back."

So far this year, a half-dozen bills have been introduced in the Colorado legislature to restrict eminent domain for purposes of economic development, toll roads, and other so-called public uses.

Proponents of eminent domain argue that to restrict the practice could harm cities' and counties' efforts to redevelop blighted areas, and would dry up private investment.

"I'm always interested in hearing what an out-of-town lawyer from Washington, D.C., says about Colorado law, especially when her group is motivated to sue cities," said Sam Mamet, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League.

Mamet and others contend that Colorado already has some of the toughest eminent domain laws in the nation.

In 1999 and 2004, lawmakers placed additional restrictions on the use of eminent domain for urban-renewal developments.

Still, state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have moved to further restrict eminent domain.

On Monday, Sen. Ron May, R-Colorado Springs, announced that he is drafting a bill to consolidate the 88 eminent domain laws on the books.

Rep. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, said he plans to introduce a bill that would require cities, counties and private developer to pay a premium, above market value, for property condemned for economic development.

"My bill says it's more than taking the property, you have to account for the violation of property rights," he said.

An Eastern Plains coalition of citizens, fighting the Super Slab, said it's more than halfway in meeting its goal of gathering 66,000-plus signatures to place an initiative on the 2006 ballot that would restrict eminent domain.

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