Public Comment. Volume III - Montana Legislature

3. Whether landowners should be taxed on industrial or other
improvements placed on the condemned land.
3. Whether condemnation orders should require condemnor's property
interest to be limited to only the specific use of the land for which they
petitioned condemnation.
4. Whether condemnees should have the right to a jury trial and the jury the
power to make a determination of the public need for the condemnation.
5. Whether private land should have the same protections and mitigation
measures afforded public land when easements are sought.
6. Whether gravel, timber, clay, or other building materials needed for
construction of a project should be allowed to be condemned.
7. Whether condemnation should require an environmental review under
the Montana Environmental Policy Act.
8. Whether public need for condemnation should be determined by local
government entities, the Board of Land Commissioners andor the Public
Service Commission instead of the current statutory presumption of public
need. All of these entities would need to concur before condemnation can
occur. This might allow some local input.
9. In order to prove need, whether the condemnor must first prove there is
no capacity in other common carriers to transport the products the
condemnor will transport. This was debated in SB 46 1 (Glaser; 1999) and is
still of concern to landowners.
10. Whether condemnors should ever be able to acquire a fee title interest in
ProPertY.
1 1. Whether a condemnor should prove hisher financial solvency to
implement the proposed use as a condition of being granted the power of
eminent domain.
13. In cases of abandonment or ,discontinuance of a use by a condemnor,
whether there should be automatic reversion of the right-of-way to the
condemnee or hisher successors in interest.
13. Whether condemnation should ever be used for private gain. The
condemnor would need to conclusively prove, via rigorous judicial standard,
that there is no private gain from the taking of someone else's property.
EQC Eminent Domain Study -97-