"If you own a home, if you own a small business, this could directly affect you," said Scott Bullock, senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the land owners.
In agreeing to hear a Connecticut case early next year, justices will revisit an issue they last dealt with 20 years ago. The court unanimously ruled then that Hawaii could take land from large property owners and resell it to others, and determined that decisions about takings were best left to elected leaders.
In the latest case, Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed a lawsuit after city officials announced plans to bulldoze their homes to clear the way for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices. The residents refused to budge, arguing it was an unjustified taking of their property.
The neighborhood included Victorian-era houses and small businesses that in some instances had been owned by several generations of families. New London, a town of less than 26,000, had been losing residents and jobs when it planned the land takeover, city leaders said.
The Fifth Amendment allows governments to take private property for "public use."
The appeal turns on whether "public use" involves seizures not to revitalize slums or build new roads or schools, but to raze unblighted homes and businesses to bring in more money for a town.
"I'm not willing to give up what I have just because someone else can generate more taxes here," said homeowner Matthew Dery, whose family has lived in the New London neighborhood known as Fort Trumbull for more than 100 years.
New London contends development plans serving a public purpose _ such as boosting economic growth _ are valid "public use" projects that outweigh homeowners' property rights.
The Connecticut Supreme Court agreed with New London, ruling 4-3 in March that the mere promise of additional tax revenue justified the condemnation.
Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned between 1998 and 2002, according to the Institute for Justice.
