Minority Interests, Majority Politics: A Comment on Richard Collins’ 'Telluride’s Tale of Eminent Domain, Home Rule, and Retroactivity'

Abstract

In his article, Telluride’s Tale of Eminent Domain, Home Rule, and Retroactivity, Professor Richard Collins skillfully parses many of the unique legal issues that confronted the Colorado Supreme Court in Town of Telluride v. San Miguel Valley Corp. In Town of Telluride the court affirmed Telluride's right to condemn and preserve for open space almost 600 acres of land located outside its geographic boundaries. This Comment, written as part of a Home Rule Symposium, expands on Professor Collins’ article, first, by framing Telluride’s tale of extraterritorial eminent domain through the lens of public choice theory, and, second, by arguing that extraterritorial condemnation, wherein a local government condemns land outside of its own geographic boundaries, necessarily implicates extra-local concerns. I conclude that a state perspective, though subject to its own political process failures, is better able to balance the inter-local and statewide interests at stake in cases of extraterritorial eminent domain.

Keywords: Home Rule, Local Government, Property, Eminent Domain, Takings, Open Space, Land Use