[xzins]

Sorry, P-M, but we thoroughly disagree.

You have just outlined the principle of wealth. If you can find a wealthy private investor to put in something on my land that brings in more money than what I'm doing with it, then you can take my land.

That means that only the wealthiest own anything.

Ahab & Jezebel just lived in the wrong age. By this ruling he could have simply taken that vineyard he coveted. After all, he was richer.

[P-Marlowe]

The principle is simply this. the Government CAN take your land. Period. While there may be some argument that it must be for "Public Use" what constitutes public use is vague and I would suspect that if the Government wanted to take your land for development purposes knowing that the taxes it will reap will be higher for the new use than for the old use, then the taking will be considered for "public use" because it benefits the public at large at the expense of the individual land owner.

The alternative to that is that they could simply rezone your property from residential or agricultural to commercial and you'd suddenly find yourself taxed out of house and home without any recourse whatsoever. At least if the government condemns your land it is required to pay you just compensation. If they simply rezone it, then you are going to be required to pay taxes that you never intended and unless you personally take the initiative to put the land to its highest use, you will likely have to sell it at a loss.

Nothing in the constitution prohibits the government from taking your land for whatever purpose it sees fit. The only constitutional proviso that must be fulfilled is that you must receive "just compensation."

Admittedly taking land in order to fit it to some redevelopment plan and to sell it to a private company or investor who agrees to implement that development plan is a novel approach to the idea of "public use." But the definition of "public use" is not to be found in the constitution and in a broad sense it is simply up to the "public" to determine whether or not a specific use of a property is for "public use" or not.

Now you may not like this decision, but you are not without rememdy. You and the good people of the State of Ohio are free to draw up a constitution that provides more protection for private property owners than the US Constitution. The Good people of the State of Ohio are free to amend their constitution to define "public use" in regard to eminent domain in such a way as to prevent cities and counties or even the state from taking your property in such a manner and for such reasons.