Can the Government Take Your Land and Give It to a Private Company?
The Story of the Little Pink House—and What It Means for Texas Landowners
Susette Kelo had a beautiful little pink house on the water in New London, Connecticut. It wasn't grand. But it was charming. And it was hers. Her house sat on the Thames River, in a neighborhood where some families had lived for generations.
Then the letter arrived.
The city had a plan
New London wanted to redevelop the waterfront. Pfizer was planning a research facility nearby, and a private developer had a vision for the land next door: offices, retail, a hotel. The city decided that vision was good for New London.
The neighborhood stood in the way. So the city condemned it.
Not because it was blighted. Not because it was dangerous. But because a private developer had a plan.
Susette Kelo fought back. Her argument was simple: you can't take land from one private citizen, hand it over to another, and call the taking a “public use.” The U.S. Constitution says "public use." Ms. Kelo argued that Pfizer's bottom line—and the city’s increased tax base and dreams of increased employment in the area—didn’t count as a “public use.”
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed. Economic development, the Court ruled, was public enough. It ruled that the taking was legal.
The neighborhood was bulldozed. Pfizer never built the facility. Today, that stretch of New London waterfront is mostly empty—home, reportedly, to a colony of feral cats.
Legal, at least according to the Supreme Court in 2005. And completely, obviously wrong.
If you read our last post, you know "public use" is the test every taking has to pass.
What changed—and what didn't
The backlash was swift. Like many other states, Texas amended its constitution to prohibit taking land from one private citizen simply to hand it to another. We recently won a case built on exactly that protection — a port authority trying to condemn land belonging to a historically Black community, justified as economic development. The court said no.
But let’s speak clearly. Winning a public-use challenge is hard. The courts have stretched those two words so far that a determined government or private company will usually find a justification. And even Texas’s anti-Kelo laws have exceptions. A good lawyer always looks for the argument. Sometimes we win. But I'd be lying to you if I said the law was fully on the side of landowners.
What Kelo really taught us isn't a legal lesson. It's something older.
The law has limits. A neighborhood can sometimes be destroyed legally, completely, and for no good reason. The law doesn’t prevent government stupidity.
Which is why you need skilled lawyers to challenge a taker’s proposed “public use.” And when arguments about “public use” can't save your land, you’ll want skilled lawyers to make absolutely sure the taker pays you for it.