Eminent Domain Report

The City of San Ysidro, a community on the border of San Diego, is currently contemplating whether it should extend its eminent domain powers, which expired last year.  The backlash from the Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v. City of New London appears to still be taking its toll, as the City's advisory committee, the San Ysidro Project Area Committee, is currently deadlocked on the topic.

Liam Dillon covers the story in a Voice of San Diego article, Masters of Their Domain, which provides some great examples of the positives and negatives of the City's use of eminent domain.

For ...

I attended the IRWA Chapter 1 (Los Angeles chapeter) lunch meeting today, and listened to my partner, Rick Friess, speak about the Pitfalls of Prejudgment Possession [PDF]. The most lively part of the discussion centered on the requirement that condemning agencies offer the property owner $5,000 to obtain his or her own appraisal, and whether the agencies can condition that money on anything. There was clear agreement on the fact that to date, no case has interpreted the requirement, and that there is at least some ambiguity about what, if any, conditions may be imposed.

Typically ...

In his September 16 article entitled DWP outmaneuvered on Kern County land purchase, Los Angeles Times reporter David Zahniser described a story full of political intrigue. It seems someone with ties to Mayor Villaraigosa acquired a property out from under the Department of Water and Power (DWP), only to immediately offer to sell the property to DWP at a hugely inflated price. While the article focuses mainly on the political aspect of the situation (e.g., did the buyer know about DWPs plans for the property when it purchased it, etc.), the eminent domain angle is also interesting.

The ...

One of the odd things about a blog is that it is often difficult to determine who the authors really are – and whether any reason exists to listen to what they have to say about a particular topic. The lawyers in Nossaman’s Eminent Domain and Valuation Group are among the top eminent domain and inverse condemnation lawyers in California. We practice together out of three offices: in Orange County; Los Angles; and San Francisco. Collectively, our attorneys have over 100 years of eminent domain experience. We have been shaping California eminent domain law for years, having been ...