Members of the House exchange words over a bill that would protect property owners if a government body wanted their property for private benefit.

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 8, 2006

BY KATHERINE GREGG and BRUCE LANDIS
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- During what sounded at times yesterday like a rowdy session of English Parliament, Rhode Island lawmakers bickered over -- then passed -- legislation to limit the ability of state and local government to take a citizen's property by eminent domain for private use.

A version sailed through the Senate with relative ease after the sponsor, Sen. James C. Sheehan, assured colleagues the bill would not interfere with land-taking for traditional uses such as highways, but would provide "a great protection for the people of Rhode Island."

Otherwise, Sheehan, D-Narragansett, said, "Whose home is safe from a Pfizer or a big box store?" That referred to the battle in New London, Conn., that brought national attention to the eminent-domain issue.

His bill would add a hurdle for land-taking: municipal agencies would be required to get the approval of their city or town council, and state agencies would need the approval of the General Assembly.

But in the House, the hour-long debate over eminent domain erupted into shouting -- and a call by the Democratic sponsor of the legislation for the sheriff to remove Republicans she accused of personally insulting her.

"If I was on that podium, I would have you rude people escorted off this floor," Rep. Charlene Lima, D-Cranston, told her perceived tormenters. "This is important business for the people of Rhode Island."

But the Republican trio of Robert Watson, Nicholas Gorham and Joseph Trillo continued to question whether her two-paragraph bill actually did what she said it did.

The bill says no state or municipal agency or public corporation, such as the state's Economic Development Corporation, "shall use their power of eminent domain to acquire private property for the purpose of conferring a private benefit or use for a particular private entity."

Lima said a city or town could still take abandonned and blighted properties by eminent domain, but unless her legislation passes, property owners will still "have absolutely no protection from the government taking their property for a private use."

"I'm sorry you're upset," said Gorham, of Coventry.

But "I still don't know what a 'particular entity' is," he said. "There are about a zillion ways around that. If you really want to protect the public from the tyranny of government condeming their land, I would think you'd do a little better job of defining what a 'particular private entity' is and you haven't done that."

And that was one of the calmer exchanges.

At another point, after Trillo publicly chided Lima for not paying attention while he argued his side of the issue, a scolding House Majority Leader Gordon Fox told Trillo that "ridiculing or denigrating the sponsor is no way to have a debate," which led Watson to shout over the ensuing din - "I'm not going to be lectured to" -- which drew this retort from Fox: "Well, you've been lecturing everybody on the floor. Sit down."

"As usual, the loudest mouth in this building can't shut up for two minutes," said Rep. William San Bento, D-Pawtucket, without identifying which of his colleagues he was talking about.

After a stunned split second of silence, House Speaker William J. Murphy said: "Representative Gorham, he wasn't speaking about you, so sit down."

Underlying the raucous debate is a serious issue that has captured state and local attention.

Eminent domain is a mechanism allowing government agencies to take private property for public purposes, with the price settled either by negotiation or the courts. It is used to acquire property for roads, utility lines, urban redevelopment projects and a variety of other purposes.

The Rhode Island General Assembly, over the years, granted eminent-domain power to a number of agencies, including the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority, the Department of Environmental Management, the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority and the Public Utilities Commission, among others.

The bills argued yesterday were 2 among at least 10 that would limit the use of eminent domain in one way or another. Some would ban it; others would discourage it by requiring the government agency acquiring the property to pay extra. For example, a bill sponsored by Rep. Brian Patrick Kennedy, D-Hopkinton, would make the acquiring agency pay 150 percent of the fair market value if the target was a home or dwelling.

The burst of legislation is a reaction to EDC's highly publicized use of its power of eminent domain in 2001 to condemn 40 acres of private property in Smithfield -- including Joseph Mollo Jr.'s -- so Fidelity Investments could expand its corporate campus, and to a February 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision. The court upheld the City of New London's taking of property for private economic development where officials had decided it would benefit the public.

New London was taking land to build offices, housing and other facilities to support a $300-million project by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. The court case was brought on behalf of homeowners in the way of the project who refused to give up their homes.

In January, in response to the New London decision, the EDC adopted a resolution to limit its own use of eminent domain. Besides setting up procedures for using the process, it said that it would not use eminent domain to condemn an owner-occupied residence for economic-development purposes.

Had her bill been law, Lima said: "Fidelity would not have been able to take Mr. Mollo's land from him." Still, the EDC has objected to a major element of Sheehan's legislation, the requirement for legislative approval. EDC lawyer Robert Stolzman said that could potentially derail major economic-development projects by imposing a cumbersome, time-consuming step to the process.

To move ahead, he said, a project could have to wait months for the legislature to meet. He said the EDC will look into amending the Sheehan bill.

Stolzman said the EDC likes Lima's House bill even less, and called it "too restrictive."

Asked for an example where the Sheehan bill might have derailed a major project, Stolzman said it might have thwarted the 350-acre Fidelity project in Smithfield in 1995.

Sheehan, however, said, "If we absolutely had do something, the legislature could do something."

kgregg@projo.com / (401) 277-7078

blandis@projo.com / (401) 277-7487