Page 28 2025 Fall Farm Outlook Lincoln Daily News Oct 2025 Eminent DOMAIN What if the government came to your home and offered to buy your property for a public project? Would you sell to them? What if you did not have a choice? Eminent domain is a power the government can use to acquire private property for public use of some kind. It does have to provide adequate compensation in doing so, but it is hard to imagine many people being okay with it if they were on the receiving end of this governmental power. Eminent domain is also not a power limited to the federal government. Here in Illinois, eminent domain is able to be used by the state government, the county government, and even the government of cities like Lincoln. What exactly is eminent domain? What reasons exactly would the government have for taking private properties? What is the risk that you might have your land taken? As for what is eminent domain, it is “the power of the government to take private property and convert it into public use.” This is a power that is granted to the federal government through the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. While it does give the government this power, it does require them to provide “just compensation.” It must also be taken to be used for “legitimate” public use. This may include things such as public roads, schools, or utilities. The exact definition of “just compensation” is something that has come into question on many occasions. In fact, there is even a section of the Illinois Eminent Domain Act (the law that allows eminent domain to exist in the state and outlines its limitations) that allows either party to appeal a court’s decision on what they rule as “just compensation.” According to real estate lawyer Danial Peters, “just compensation” is determined in one of two ways. The first is to pay “fair market value,” or the highest amount that someone would pay for the property. The second is to pay “fair market value” in addition to what value the rest of your property would lose from the loss of the property taken due to eminent domain. Exact numbers on how much land has been taken due to eminent domain, or even the number of instances in which it has been used can be hard to come by. There is no official data that tracks this information. According to an article published in the Chicago-Kent Law Review in 2009, there were over 250 instances of eminent domain being used in a five-year span.
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