ABSTRACT
Eminent domain provides for a more immediate response to a need for densification by allowing land to be acquired immediately with just compensation and subject to construction by the agency itself or through a development agreement. The public agency will acquire the land and dispose of it under a development agreement with a private party. Congress and the various state legislatures have frequently delegated the power to exercise eminent domain to the federal government, and the territorial government’s agencies and in the case of the states and territories, to local governments. Instead, United States is a constitutional baseline that almost always applies to public acquisition of interests in land and many shared commonalities of eminent domain practice and procedure under federal and state law that may not be required. Aside from issues of just compensation, the most frequent constitutional objection to the use of the eminent domain power is that of "public use".
