US Army Corps of Engineering Money Comes with a Condemnation Kicker

NewYorkTimes - Johnny Milano

Snapshot- The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the go-to source of funding for coastal flooding mitigation. Billions of dollars of requests are pending. However, a new policy says that if you take the money, and if removing houses from the flood risk area is part of the plan, the local government has to agree to condemn properties that don’t take voluntary buy-out offers.

Backstory- The New York Times first reported on this new USACE policy: take our money and you agree to use eminent domain to remove people from the flood risk area. The issue popped up again in another story about the USACE project in the Florida Keys. Local Governments are studying this change, urgently needing the funding but leery of the reality of their having to condemn property.

The need for this policy is clear. With existing voluntary programs flood-prone neighborhoods are left with a checkerboard of properties cleared next to still-occupied houses. For localities this means people still at risk and keeps the locality on the hook for providing increasingly expensive services in the neighborhood. However, the use of eminent domain is a powerful policy with a long and mixed history and is not one most localities are eager to use.

There are a range of issues involved: What is the value of the house? Can there be “life rights” conferred so that residents can remain for a time? Who pays the cost of this -feds, locals, combination? Finally, is there an option for other actions, such as the one we are studying to use land trusts to take the properties and place “rolling easements” on the property, allowing residents to stay until flooding gets too risky.

Lots of policy changes will emanate from this and we need to take the time to study how to best implement this.