Lawsuit Challenges Use of Eminent Domain as NIMBY Tool to Block Housing Project
The town of Johnston, Rhode Island is targeting property for condemnation in order to prevent the construction of an affordable housing project on the site. The Pacific Legal Foundation (a public interest law firm representing the property owners) in the case, has a helpful description of the facts [Note: PLF is also my wife’s employer, though she has no involvement in this case and does not work on property rights issues]:
SCLS Realty, LLC and Sixty Three Johnston, LLC were formed by Salvatore Compagnone, Jr, a fourth-generation general contractor in Johnston, Rhode Island, whose family has a long history in the building trade dating back to Italy. After Salvatore’s father passed away in early 2024, his family took the helm of development in the town with plans to carry on the building tradition and provide desperately needed, new affordable housing.
A 2023 Rhode Island law aimed at incentivizing private creation of affordable housing (housing that costs less than a third of a moderate- or low-income household’s income) seemed to pave the way. This law allows more living units per acre than local rules usually permit and requires local governments to streamline the approval process with quicker and simpler permitting procedures.
SCLS and Sixty Three Johnston own just over 31 vacant acres of land in the Providence suburb of Johnston. The town of some 30,000 residents is just a few miles from the state capital, yet only 7% of its housing serves low- and moderate-income residents.
SCLS and Sixty Three Johnston’s property was already zoned for dense apartment-style development. Sal Compagnone and his partner, Ralph Santoro, designed a 252-unit, five-building complex, and in October 2024, submitted a preliminary land-use application to the Town planning department, which set a December 3 hearing to review the plans. But Johnston’s mayor, Joseph Polisena, Jr., had other ideas. On the same day as SCLS and Sixty Three Johnston’s planning board hearing, he posted a letter on social media attacking the project. He claimed it would create “a trifecta of chaos” with increased traffic, drainage problems, and an overwhelmed school system. And although Rhode Island law specifically allows—indeed encourages—this type of housing development, the mayor accused the LLCs of trying to “force-feed” an unwanted project on the Town. His letter also fired out a clear threat: “If you insist on moving forward with the currently proposed project, I will use all the power of government that I have to stop it.”
The mayor wasn’t bluffing. On January 27, 2025, Polisena abruptly announced the Town would seize the LLCs’ land by eminent domain. He claimed the Town needed the LLCs’ property for a new municipal complex, despite zero evidence the Town had ever previously considered such an acquisition or that relocation of the Town’s facilities nearly three miles away from their present central location to the edge of the town had ever been mentioned, much less planned. But the Town Council unanimously approved the taking the very next day.
PLF and the owners are challenging the use of eminent domain to take the property on the grounds that the condemnation here is not for a “public use,” as required by the Fifth Amendment, and the Rhode Island state constitution.
In cases like Kelo v. City of New London, the Supreme Court
Article from Reason.com
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