Fighting Eminent Domain Abuse

The Washington Post has an article on how some westerners are using ballot initiatives to try to limit the use of eminent domain and to get compensation for landowners when land use regulations impair land values: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/01/AR2006100101135.html?referrer=email

Among the objections to the proposed measures is the fear that taxpayers will be hit hard by compensation claims. Of course, a remedy for this would be to eschew making so many land use regulations, but that course of action, or inaction, is inconceivable to authoritarians. Some measures adopt a "waive or pay" approach in which government can either compensate the landowner or waive application of the regulation.

I have long regarded land use regulations as "takings" since they reduce the "bundle of rights" of titleholders to land. If regulations render it unlawful for me to develop my land or restrict the development I can do, that is as good as a "taking" in my book, and I ought to be compensated. This would have the added benefit of making governments consider the costs of legislation. At present, governments pay nothing for land use regulations and have no disincentives to meddling. Voters would be more attentive to politicians' records on land use if they thought that their taxes would go up as a result. Currently, I can advocate restrictions on my neighbor's use of his property at no cost to myself, other than the cost of having a pissed off neighbor.

Out west, ballot initiatives are easier to pull off than here in the east, but it would be interesting to try to do something like this in a busybody state like New York. Of course, New Yorkers might not have much of an attachment to property rights and might be addicted to meddling with their neighbors. They certainly tax and regulate each other up the wazoo.