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The Fifth and 14th amendment of Constitution allows it, and ensures that private parties are justly compensated for. Issue is, for what use?

For many states, condemnation procedures were born from railroads acquiring land to lay tracks.

State legislatures then conveyed authority to other state and local entities: Urban Renewal Authorities, parking facilities, airport expansion.

The main complaint is condemning private property for future private use (i.e. home developer). However, the condemning authority can claim that new property tax roles helps local infrastructure, thus is a public use. This debate continues to be hot.

Though the 5th allows taking with just compensation for 'public use', the USSC in Kelo changed that to 'public purpose'. That's the significant issue in all this. The USSC amended the United States Constitution without having to get a 2/3 vote in the Senate or approval by 3/4 of the States.

"...and ensures that private parties are justly compensated for"

There's the rub.

The scam goes like this. The Nature Conservancy works with the Feds to ID a piece of land they want. The NC goes to the landowner and says, "Your land is going to be claimed by the feds. Its value was $XX. But now that it's being claimed, no one will pay that. We'll pay 1/2 of $XX."

The landowner, feeling they're getting a bargain at the offer of half the real value, signs quickly and moves off the land. The NC buys the land. They then sell it to the feds at 3/4 $XX.

The NC makes a healthy profit. The feds get more land under their control -- using taxpayer money. The landowner gets screwed. Another chunk of private property is taken off the market. The value of property on the one hand rises among those still willing to buy because of supply and demand. But the intrinsic value of private property declines because no one has a safe and true sense of ownership, a Marxist dream come true. We need an amendment specifying what ED can be used for (military in times of war, roads, bridges that are absolutely necessary (even this point can be hotly debated, at one point do we have enough roads?), i.e., ED can NOT be used to generate revenue either through increased property taxes or through sales taxes.