News & Events

In a statement on its website, the Connecticut Office of Ombudsman For Property Rights announced the closure of the office effective September 8, 2009 as a result of budgetary constraints. Robert S. Poliner who held the position of the first and only Connecticut Ombudsman for Property Rights served only two years.

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On September 4, OCA Hawaii Member Robert Thomas filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Owners' Counsel of America in Stop the Beachfront Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (cert. granted. June 15, 2009). The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether a 2008 Florida Supreme Court decision which upheld the Florida Beach and Shore Preservation Act and reversed more than a century of Florida law...

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A New Jersey appeals court recently ruled that business losses resulting from a temporary taking of commercial property for the repair of public infrastructure must be compensated. In it's August 27, 2009 opinion, the appellate court upheald a trial court’s dismissal of the New Jersey Department of Transportation’s attempted taking of such a property where its offer of compensation failed to consider the business losses. The appellate court, in...

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Willets Point United Against Eminent Domain Abuse (Willets Point United) filed an amicus brief this week in support of a group of fellow NYC property owners, businesses and tenants who are fighting the use of condemnation and the taking of their properties for the proposed Atlantic Yards Arena and Redevelopment Project in Brooklyn. (For more detailed reporting of the proposed Atlantic Yards project, see Norman Oder's Atlantic Yards Report.)...

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Yesterday, Willets Point United Against Eminent Domain Abuse, a group of business and property owners dedicated to fighting eminent domain abuse in the neighborhood of Willets Point, in Queens, NY, met on the steps of City Hall to raise their concerns about the nomination of Judge Sonya Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Willets Point United joins other property rights groups, legal scholars and experts in questioning Judge Sotomayor's position...

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Here are some things that caught our attention over the past week or so...

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Widener University Law Professor D. Benjamin Barros summarizes the property rights case (Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection) recently accepted for review by the Supreme Court in his post: What's at Stake in Stop the Beach Renourishment. (Our post about this case is available here.)

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Jun 16, 2009 - Port Chester, NY - The village of Port Chester publicly apologized to property owner William Brody for improperly seizing his commercial property by condemnation nearly in 1999. In a settlement that ended the decade-long battle between the property owner and the village, Port Chester paid the property owner $475,000, formally apologized from the steps of the Village Hall during a settlement signing ceremony and re-named...

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On Monday morning, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a Florida property rights case, Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Dep't of Environmental Protection, et al. (08-1151). In granting certiorari, the Court will decide whether state legislation to renourish eroded beaches along the coast or lakeshores constitutes a regulatory taking or violates the Fifth Amendment when the boundary lines of waterfront private property is affected.

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Recently, the Institute for Justice released the following press release regarding the lawsuit filed by Texas Developer H. Walker Royall against author Carla Main and publisher, Encounter Books, regarding Ms. Main's book: Bulldozed: “Kelo,” Eminent Domain, and the American Lust for Land. The Institute for Justice represents Ms. Main and Encounter Books in this defamation suit. Bulldozed is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. For more about this...

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