Real Estate & Property Law

Orland Park Case Raises Serious Issues

By Alan Ackerman

Orland Park Prairie

Orland Park will learn no later than April 26 whether nearly four years of Village Board executive session minutes can be viewed by the defendants in the Orland Plaza eminent domain case.

Circuit Court Judge Sanjay Tailor said during a hearing Friday, March 12, at the Daley Center in Chicago that he has reviewed the minutes and will issue a written ruling by April 26.

At a hearing one week earlier, Tailor ruled the Village must turn over the minutes to him for inspection. The minutes are of executive session meetings from Jan. 16, 2006, through Dec. 21, 2009.

Attorney Steve Viz, who represents Orland Plaza owner George Gee and nine of the retail center's tenants, requested Tailor review the minutes. Viz claims the minutes may reveal Orland Park is improperly using its eminent domain rights by seeking the land to further economic growth instead of the Village's position that the land is for roadways for the Main Street Triangle.

"The Village would have to jump through a lot more hoops [in the eminent domain process] to acquire the land for economic redevelopment," Viz said in a phone interview last week. "We contend they're trying to go the easy route by saying it's for roads."
    
Initially, Orland Park was a simple condemnation of a plaza for a roadway.  The owner's claim is that the real reason for the project is for commercial redevelopment and economic income increases to the community created by the project.  
    
In order to support its position that the project is simply a way of utilizing public use for the benefit of the community, the owner has requested production of the otherwise unusually considered privileged closed session minutes.  It is unlikely that the Illinois trial judge will allow production, but even if production is allowed, victory is in no way guaranteed to the owner.  Frequently, courts will disregard the underlying reason for an acquisition and simply conclude because the end use of the acquisition is for a roadway, that, in and of itself is enough.  An example of this is the Grosse Ile Toll Bridge, wherein the Michigan Supreme Court maintained that even though the Township of Grosse Ile was taking the property for reasons that were clearly shown to be inaccurate reflections of fact, because the end use was a roadway the Township could acquire the property.
    
All too frequently, the court simply looks at the end use  without taking into any consideration whether the claimed public use is really something else. 

Full post as published by National Eminent Domain Blog on April 07, 2010 (boomark / email).