Justices Affirm Property Seizures

[denton]

There was an incident in Utah a few years ago, where the city of Orem condemned a person's property. The property owner knew that the land could easily and profitably be rezoned commercial, and demanded the price of the property be based on commercial value. The city swore up and down that they would never rezone it, and paid only the residential price. As soon as they had it, they rezoned it, and sold it to a commercial developer at a tidy profit.

There was another incident here in Ogden, where the city wanted to condemn property for commercial development. There was a real stink about it, because it strikes so many people as fundamentally unfair.

Partly because of abuse like that, we now have a state law that strictly limits the use of eminent domain.