Face The State Staff Report
On the heels of a controversial Colorado Supreme Court decision allowing for aggressive eminent domain powers by municipal governments, one city is enhancing property rights protections through a comprehensive review of its Home Rule Charter.
City of Edgewater
The Edgewater Charter Commission — a 14-member citizen panel elected last November and charged with revising the city’s charter — agreed to include provisions to discourage its government from abusing the power of eminent domain.
The new charter in Edgewater — a small Jefferson County community of just over 5,000 residents west of Denver — notably stipulates that the city government must double amounts paid to property owners facing condemnation of land if a condemned parcel of property is subsequently sold by the government to a private developer.
Edgewater City Councilman Adam Gardner — who brought the idea to the charter commission — says he hopes to protect personal property with the unique provisions in his city’s new charter.
“My only hope is that this action serves as a reminder to governments across Colorado that they do not have the last word on eminent domain,” Gardner said. “The people have the last say.”
Tom Wambolt, president of the Colorado Property Rights Coalitio — a non-profit organization with the objective of protecting Colorado citizens against eminent-domain abuses — was elated upon hearing the news about Edgewater.
“This a better deal for property owners for sure,” Wambolt said.
The use of eminent domain—the power to condemn private land for a public use—has been the source of heated debates recently due to a Colorado Supreme Court decision coming out of Telluride, coupled with fears around the Denver metro area that light rail expansion may bring eminent domain abuse to property owners in Denver's western suburbs.
In Telluride, the town council strove to condemn more than 570 acres of private land to preserve it for open space. An out-of-state developer bought the land in the 1980s and sought to develop part of it, and spent more than a decade fighting the town's attempts to condemn it entirely. The case eventually ended up in the state Supreme Court with the majority of the justices ruling in favor of the town, saying Telluride was within its authority to condemn the land even though it was located outside its territorial boundaries. The decision struck down a state law prohibiting municipalities from condemning land outside municipal boundaries for the purpose of open space.
The Colorado Municipal League — the taxpayer-funded lobbying arm for Colorado's local governments — praised the decision, however, declaring it a victory for home-rule municipalities and filing an amicus brief in favor of the town.
The move by Edgewater also comes just months after a contentious but unsuccessful effort in the state legislature attempted to limit how the Regional Transportation District uses land it condemns under the power of eminent domain. House Bill 1278 was championed by landowners who have alleged that RTD has sought to condemn land for the FasTracks West Corridor light rail project to bolster private development projects. Despite bipartisan sponsorship, the measure died in the Democrat-controlled Senate Committee on Local Government.