Project Types
Drainage, stormwater, schools and civic facilities, and the property they need to get built.
Local governments and districts acquire land for schools, fire and rescue stations, libraries, water and sewer plant, drainage improvements and stormwater management. These projects attract less attention than highways but they take property on the same constitutional terms.
Drainage and stormwater work in particular tends to take small awkward pieces of land, or easements across the low corner of a parcel, and owners routinely underestimate what that does to the rest.
The short answer
Small takes are not always small losses. A stormwater easement across the only buildable part of a lot can affect its value out of all proportion to the area involved.
Corners, strips and pieces rather than whole parcels.
Read moreWhat the piece taken does to the rest.
Read moreThe residue and what it will still support.
Read moreDrainage and access rights.
Read moreHomes beside a new facility.
Read moreHow the piece taken is measured.
Read moreSetbacks, septic fields and stormwater rules interact. Losing a corner can cost you a building envelope entirely.
A drainage scheme that discharges onto the residue raises a damage question, and possibly more.
Local bodies sometimes seek easements where a purchase would be cleaner. The instrument changes what you keep.
Temporary easements should be defined in time and in what is restored afterwards.
Bodies exercising condemnation authority in Florida do so under powers granted by the legislature. The public purpose requirement in Article X section 6 applies to all of them.
Yes. It is a property right taken, and the effect on the land that remains forms part of the compensation question.
Where a public body has taken or damaged property without a condemnation proceeding, inverse condemnation is the route owners use. Raise it promptly and in writing.
Explore Florida resources matched to your property type, the project affecting it, and the stage you have reached.
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