Category: OCA Blog

Property owners from across the country have been reaching out to Owners’ Counsel of America in search of answers to the scourge of government code enforcement actions being leveled against them. These actions can sometimes lead to the seizure of private property. While this is not a situation that OCA or OCA members generally handle, in an effort to provide some useful guidance and assistance to property owners being...

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OCA Honorary Member and Vice President of Legal Affairs for the Pacific Legal Foundation, James Burling, writes in a new article about the many ways and means by which governments, particularly in California, discriminated against Asian immigrants’ right to earn a living and hold property. When the Statue of Liberty was erected in 1875, Jim writes, it stood as a beacon for freedom and openness, welcoming immigrants from around...

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A state judge recently halted work on a Louisiana drainage project being promoted by the Lafayette Consolidated Government (LCG) that it claims is designed to ease flooding and drainage issues. But the property selected for this work has belonged to the same family for almost 100 years, and according to the family’s lawyer, Randall Smith, lacks necessary permits and will in no way address the drainage concerns that the...

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James Burling, Vice President of Legal Affairs at Pacific Legal Foundation, will receive the 2022 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize at William & Mary Law School’s 19th annual Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference on September 29-30 sponsored by the William & Mary Property Rights Project. The Property Rights Project presents the award each year to an individual whose scholarly work and accomplishments affirm that property rights are fundamental to protecting individual and...

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The North Carolina Department of Transportation will pay $2.9 million to a landowner after its road-widening operation required it to take part of a three-acre tract of land in Caldwell County that had previously had an unobstructed view into the Grandfather Mountain Gorge, OCA North Carolina member George Autry reports. NCDOT had initially contended that the plot, owned by the Arbuckle family, was unsuitable for development altogether. But after...

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An historic station that was built as the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Conshohocken Station circa 1890 is now the subject of a taking by the Borough of Conshohocken for alleged park purposes.  Although passenger service at the Outbound Station ceased in 1962, after the property was purchased by Joe and Barb Collins and lovingly restored, it was used for nearly 30 years as an antique store, and more recently, leased to...

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In Cheshire Hunt v. United States, the Court of Federal Claims ruled recently in favor of landowners who held property abutting an abandoned railway that was subsequently converted into a public recreational rail-trail called the Legacy Trail. The property owners were represented by OCA Member, Thor Hearne. As part of the rail-trail conversion, Sarasota County had demanded that the owners remove fences and other structures from the one-hundred-foot-wide rail-trail...

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The future of a 145-year-old YMCA known as the Hunton Y that serves as an important community and service center in the heart of one of the poorest neighborhoods in Norfolk, Virginia is in doubt as the city seeks to use its’ eminent domain power to take it for redevelopment purposes. “All you have to do is walk in, see children, and you see the value of what the Hunton...

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Parts of Canada, like the United States, will likely see an increase in property takings due to existing and upcoming public infrastructure projects. This is particularly true in Ontario. Recently, OCA Member, Shane Rayman, with Rayman Beitchman LLP in Toronto was interviewed on the subject for the Canadian Lawyer publication. “Expropriation is happening more and more frequently as more and more public works take place,” Shane Rayman says, pointing...

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Under the inverse condemnation statutes and laws in most states, any authority or body that has the power of eminent domain and that has taken some action resulting in private property being taken, destroyed or damaged may be sued based on a claim of inverse condemnation.  But what if the authority or body (i.e. the party responsible for the taking or damaging) does not actually possess the power of...

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