| Governor Christine Gregoire has signed a new eminent domain law that will open up the essentially secret meetings where local governments decide to use eminent domain. Previously, property owners were forced to seek out postings on obscure government websites to discover whether their property faced condemnation. HB 1458 provides citizens whose property is threatened with direct personal notice of the meetings where the fate of their property could be decided.
The need for the legislation was underscored when a property owner in King County lost the rights to his land because Sound Transit wanted it for a train station and the only public notice appeared on an obscure Web site. A King County judge ruled in favor of Sound Transit, which later decided not to use the property, and sold it at a profit.
The bill enacts one of the three recommendations made by Washington Policy Center (WPC) in “A False Sense of Security: The Potential for Eminent Domain Abuse in Washington State,” by Bill Maurer of the Institute for Justice- Washington Chapter.
The study documents shortcomings in Washington’s statutes that allowed the government to abuse its eminent domain power. At WPC’s press conference in January releasing the study, Attorney General Rob McKenna announced the creation of a task force to review Washington’s eminent domain laws and recommend changes for the 2008 Legislative Session to better protect property owners from abuse. McKenna’s goal is to establish a balanced task force that will seek ways to reduce the threat of eminent domain abuse without interfering with legitimate exercises of the government’s ability to condemn property for legitimate public uses.
“Although this bill is a small victory for Washington State property owners, the threat of eminent domain abuse is still very real,” said WPC President Dann Mead Smith. “There is still plenty of room for improvement when it comes to eminent domain reform and our study provides a roadmap for policymakers in future sessions to ensure private property is protected in our state.”
The WPC study recommends two further changes to state law:
- Reform Washington’s Community Renewal Law, which permits the government to declare entire neighborhoods “blighted,” condemn all the properties in them, and transfer the property to private developers.
- Require the government to limit its condemnations to only those properties that are actually necessary to achieve public use.
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