I just posted this hypothetical over at Mike Sylvester’s blog, but thought I’d go ahead and post it here.
I haven’t gone back to check the statutory language so maybe this is an easy one to answer. But, a hypothetical occurred to me. Under the new proposal (HB 1010), a government unit would still be able to condemn property to build a road. Would the government unit then be able to allow a private entity to use part of the right of way? Say allow telephone or electric lines not owned by the government to be strung out in the right of way acquired by the government?
O.k., I went ahead and read some of the language of the statute. I think it depends on whether the private entity — a telephone company, for example– would be deemed to be “exercising control” over a parcel by using the right of way to run a phone line. The statute doesn’t say. The test I would use, I guess, is to ask whether the telephone company would have standing to challenge some activity on the land by a 3rd party that interferes with its use of the right of way or whether it would have to rely on the government entity who condemned the land to correct the interference.
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