On 6/29/2018 8:26 AM, jbeattie wrote:

Eminent domain is taking by the government and not private development. Your wistful old man probably spent his money trying to prevent the development by challenging a zoning change that allowed PUDs or some sort of high density development.

In theory yes.

In practice, developers will try to exert pressure on government to
force a landowner to sell out to the developer by threatening various
actions.

We had a case like that in my city. We found out, through public records
requests, that a developer was trying to have the city put pressure on a
reluctant property owner to sell out. The property owner did eventually
sell, though there is no written evidence that the city complied with
the developer's request to force them to "play ball."