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by Amy Beth Graves

The first report is in. Ohio's legislature should make changes to state eminent domain laws and consider a statewide standard for blight.

A task force has been studying Ohio's eminent domain laws since February and its first report was released April 3. The panel has until Aug. 1 to make specific policy recommendations for the legislature, which does not have to follow them. The task force stopped short of making a recommendation on whether Ohio should change its constitution, saying it was premature to make such a decision.

Larry Gearhardt, Ohio Farm Bureau Federation's director of local affairs, represents agriculture and rural communities on the 25-member task force, which includes lawmakers, attorneys, city planners and a judge. OFBF has made several recommendations, including that agricultural land enrolled in the CAUV real property tax program be exempted from being declared blighted.

The committee was created last year in wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous "Kelo" decision. The high court ruled that a government could take private property to advance the economic development efforts of another private entity.

Gearhardt said he was surprised that some task force members were against a constitutional amendment.

"There's no doubt in my mind that there needs to be a constitutional amendment," he said. "To say that there doesn't need to be a constitutional amendment ignores compelling testimony."

Between 1998 and 2002 there were more than 10,000 instances of eminent domain abuse nationwide with at least 421 in Ohio, according to Steven Anderson, coordinator of the Castle Coalition, the Institute for Justice's nationwide grassroots property rights activism project. The Castle Coalition documented the number of abuse reports by examining newspaper articles about eminent domain proceedings that were for private development and said the actual number is much higher.

"Many of the cases of abuse that we found were the result of bogus blight designations, using factors provided under Ohio law," Anderson said during testimony in March. "The abuse in Ohio is both real and severe."

Ohio needs to have an objective definition of blight, Anderson said, pointing out that the city of Lakewood tried to condemn an area as being blighted because some homes didn't have three bedrooms, two bathrooms or two-car garages.

Responding to a question by Gearhardt about how blight could affect agricultural land, Anderson said a rural, desert area in California was declared blighted so a race track could be built.

"Farms, churches, Moose lodges – those paying lower taxes are particularly susceptible to eminent domain," Anderson said.

Task force co-chairs Sen. Tim Grendell and Rep. Bill Seitz and other panel members said they were impressed with Farm Bureau's proposals. Some members who recommended little change to state law admitted that the taking of farmland needed to be more fully addressed.

"We need protection for citizens. I'm liking a lot of the proposals Farm Bureau is bringing forward," Sen. Kimberly Zurz said.

Some of Farm Bureau's other suggestions for eminent domain law revisions include:

• Have landowner's fees and costs (including appraiser fees) paid if a jury awards more than a specified percentage of the last offer by the government agency. In addition to fair market value plus attorney fees, compensation should include damages to the residue of the property, complete relocation costs and lost business profits for businesses forced to relocate.
• Define blight based on objective standards only; subjective standards such as "deteriorating" and "deteriorated" should be eliminated from the definition.
• Require the government agency, not a private interest such as a developer, to pay for a blight study.
• Prohibit a non-elected board from using eminent domain or require that a non-elected board have the appropriation approved by an elected body after a public hearing.
• Give landowners the opportunity to buy property back at the original purchase price if land was taken but not used for a project.
• Reverse or change the burden of proof that is currently on the landowner to prove that the government is wrong.
• Have an ombudsman for landowners to consult in eminent domain proceedings.

Besides meeting in the Statehouse, the task force is holding sessions statewide so it can hear from people affected by eminent domain. Check out the OFBF Web site, www.ofbf.org, for the latest locations and times.