LC-02 · Property
Eminent domain for private development
Your house, their project
In ordinary words
A city can force you to sell your home, pay you “just compensation,” and hand the land to a private developer if a redevelopment plan claims the project will raise tax revenue or create jobs.
Why people call it a crime
People hear “they took my house and gave it to a corporation” and call it theft. The law calls it a public use.
A scene, not a hypothetical statute
You restore a small house. The city says a hotel and offices would pay more tax. You get a check. The hotel is never built. The block sits empty. That is the Kelo story, and in many places a version of it is still lawful unless the state legislature banned it.
In legal terms
The Fifth Amendment Takings Clause, applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, allows private property to be taken for public use with just compensation. In Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), a 5–4 Court held that economic development can qualify as a public purpose even if the land is transferred to a private party under an integrated plan. The Fort Trumbull project that justified the taking was never built. Many states later narrowed their own eminent-domain statutes.
The Court had long read “public use” as “public purpose,” citing Berman v. Parker (1954) and Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff (1984). A carefully considered plan, not a one-off gift to a friend of the mayor, was enough for the majority.
U.S. Const. amend. V; Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005); Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26 (1954).
Where it stops being legal
A taking whose actual purpose is to confer a private benefit on an identifiable party is still unconstitutional. Pretextual takings, takings without compensation, and takings that violate a stricter state constitution or statute are unlawful. After Kelo, state law is often the real limit.