by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Just as lawmakers promised and Jacksonville city planners feared, the Florida Legislature closed the 2006 legislative session by restricting the state’s eminent domain laws.
The changes, which will make it more difficult for governments to take private property for public use, are exactly what the City’s economic development officials didn’t want. Ron Barton, the executive director of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission, warned before the session started that restrictions could be coming.
Before a recent City Council Finance Committee meeting, Barton said the changes could handcuff the City’s efforts to turn around underperforming tracts of Jacksonville real estate.
“Sometimes, only as a last resort, it’s a necessary step,” said Barton. “For a variety of reasons, sometimes you have an area that doesn’t act according to rational market factors and the government needs to step in.”
The legislation limited the reasons a government can seize land for “public purpose.”
State Rep. Dick Kravitz explained the rationale in an earlier interview. He said the original language was too broad making the laws ripe for abuse.
“Something like public purpose could refer to almost anything,” he said. “There needs to be a significant tightening on that.”
The new law still allows governments to take blighted land for fundamental public uses like building schools or roads. But property can no longer be taken with a strict economic development motive.
Barton said it was “ironic” that the Legislature was focusing on limiting public purpose.
“That’s a pretty fundamental aspect of the law,” he said.
The legislation has caused similar heartburn for local governments across the state. Municipal advocates The Florida Redevelopment Association tried to rally local officials statewide to lobby against the law. In Riviera Beach, where the city wants to use eminent domain as part of a $2.4 billion waterfront development, city officials were preparing to shuttle local lobbyists to Tallahassee to argue against the law last Thursday just as the final version was passed.
Land use lawyer Mark Bentley, of Gray, Harris & Robinson and the Association of Eminent Domain Professionals, labeled the law “Hurricane Kelo,” in the AEDP’s May newsletter.
The label is a reference to the landmark 2005 Supreme Court ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, Conn. The Court issued a 5-4 decision in that case that said economic development qualified as “public use.”
But Florida’s lawmakers begged to differ. Before the session Barton said he feared that the Kelo decision could generate politically-charged changes to Florida’s eminent domain laws.
Barton thinks eminent domain should only be used as a last resort to take blighted properties that stand in the way of urban renewal. Barton doesn’t agree with the Kelo decision, but now he has to deal with its political fallout.