Compensated=Paid. Most states have a clear route to this, and payment is to be made at the actual value of the property.
In Minnesota, where I live, you can take the folks to court to get what the property's worth, if you're not offered the proper amount.
For residential property, it's pretty simple to figure out, since homes are sold all the time. It's hard to fight with the prevailing prices of similar homes in similar neighborhoods, since the records exist.
Nobody's taking any property without compensation, and there is recourse if that compensation is not adequate.
Any state may pass laws that restrict eminent domain takings. Nothing the SCOTUS said limits that. If your state does not have such limits, then there's where to start.
"Compensated=Paid. Most states have a clear route to this, and payment is to be made at the actual value of the property."
Check out the history of the term, "requisition". It used to mean the same thing. Not only that, why not demand fair compensation for the prices of other things? Food, medicine, etc?
Actual value meaning assessed value? Actual value meaning to the developer? Actual value meaning what the property owner thinks? Actual value meaning what the general public will pay? And besides I thought it was "fair market value."
Case in point: Tracts of land from a family farm in North Carolina were condemned by the State for a highway. So far so good, that's public use, right? The just compensation? The State said and the courts agreed that the increase in the land value engendered by the highway was the property owner's compensation. Just compensation is whatever the powers that be say it is.
Not quite. Those prices (value) were established between a willing seller and a willing buyer. If the seller is NOT willing, the analogy fails. The seller my value the property much higher, for reasons of age, emotions, sentimentality, or whatever. The state only offers in compensation what IT thinks the property is worth, not the unwilling seller.