Real Estate & Property Law

Maryland Breaks New Ground

By Alan Ackerman

Hometown Annapolis

A plan proposed this week by Mayor Ellen O. Moyer to use eminent domain to break the lease for the near-vacant Market House caught some by surprise.

City officials took the first step in that process by sending a notice yesterday to Site Realty Group, the Silver Spring company that holds a 20-year lease on the historic City Dock building, that it defaulted on its lease by failing to pay rent and by failing to keep the facility filled with vendors.

Moyer and city officials said the city is exploring whether to repossess the building by using the rarely invoked process of eminent domain.

"(Funky) is an apt way to describe" the maneuver, said Jack Morkan, an attorney representing several vendors that are suing the city and Site Realty in county Circuit Court for lease breaches.

Morkan said he did not hear about the city's eminent domain plans, which Moyer unveiled in her State of the City address at City Hall Monday night, until a reporter from The Capital contacted him.

"The city is a constant source of amusement," he said. "I don't think they'll find any support for this in Maryland law."

Site Realty officials could not be reached for comment.

Eminent domain allows the government to seize land or a building for public use or, at times, to make way for economic development. The court system determines the fair value the government must pay in order to take over a property.

Maryland is still open in allowing governments to take for purposes the government sees as 'public use.' However, there is the shocking relief available to the owner, known as 'just compensation.' The government might more than it wants, like a big bill.

Full post as published by National Eminent Domain Blog on March 27, 2009 (boomark / email).