Bill awaits Blunt’s signature
By American staff
After months of debate and controversy, the House passed Eminent Domain legislation last Friday. The state Senate had previously passed the measure, House Bill 1944, which now goes to the desk of Governor Matt Blunt.
The legislation is a product of compromise from the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, the St. Louis RCGA, the utility industries, the Missouri Farm Bureau and a host of other parties. Several concessions were made on all sides to ensure that the bill.
“Overall, the legislation provides more protection for property owners, while still allowing provisions for developers. Opponents still argue that the legislation does not go far enough to protect property owners,” said state Representative Connie Johnson, who has asked for a special committee to study urban issues pertaining to eminent domain and blight.
In a release, the Senate Majority Caucus said the bill “limits eminent domain for economic development and updates nearly 60-year-old, out-dated practices of seizing land using eminent domain for public projects such as roads and utilities. Under the new bill, families and businesses would also be better compensated when they are not willing to sell.”
Senate Republicans also said the bill “outlines that property owners should be paid based on what the price of the land would be for development, not its current use. Heritage value, meaning homes, farms or businesses that have been in the same extended family for at least 50 years, will automatically receive an additional 50 percent on top of the land’s value. Farmland is prohibited from being blighted. Anyone whose home or business is taken will receive homestead value, or an additional 25 percent on top of the home’s value.”
The bill also includes re-establishment costs, capped at $10,000 for any business displaced by eminent domain. Relocation costs, up to $1,000 are available for homeowners and renters.
The bill also works to update eminent domain laws dealing with public use. It requires notice to landowners as soon as a utility or transportation department looks at purchasing an easement. It prohibits easements from being transferred or used for a different purpose than originally purchased for. And in the case the use of the land within 300 feet of the home or business on a property is disturbed by the easement, the utility or department must pay an additional 25 percent under the Homestead value provision.
Senate President Pro Tem Michael R. Gibbons, R-Kirkwood, represents Sunset Hills which was devastated by a failed eminent domain project for a new shopping mall.
“The most powerful reform was seen in the local elections this April when local alderman and the mayor in Sunset Hills were voted out of office for trying to displace a good neighborhood for more tax revenue from a shopping center,” Gibbons said.
“This bill creates a threshold that will prevent developers and local governments from abusing the awesome power of government to take someone’s home, farm or business.”