H.B. 323

1

EMINENT DOMAIN AMENDMENTS
2 2008 GENERAL SESSION
3 STATE OF UTAH
4 Chief Sponsor: Aaron Tilton
5 Senate Sponsor: ____________
6
7 LONG TITLE
8 General Description:
9 This bill modifies provisions relating to eminent domain.
10 Highlighted Provisions:
11 This bill:
12 . clarifies an exclusion from a public use relating to trails, paths, or other ways for
13 walking, hiking, bicycling, equestrian use, or other recreational uses for which
14 eminent domain may not be used;
15 . excludes emergency access ways as a public use for which eminent domain may be
16 used; and
17 . excludes certain parks from the scope of what is a public use for purposes of
18 eminent domain.
19 Monies Appropriated in this Bill:
20 None
21 Other Special Clauses:
22 None
23 Utah Code Sections Affected:
24 AMENDS:
25 78-34-1, as last amended by Laws of Utah 2006, Chapter 358
26
27 Be it enacted by the Legislature of the state of Utah:

28 Section 1. Section 78-34-1 is amended to read:
29 78-34-1. Uses for which right may be exercised.
30 Subject to the provisions of this chapter, the right of eminent domain may be exercised
31 in behalf of the following public uses:
32 (1) all public uses authorized by the Government of the United States[.];
33 (2) public buildings and grounds for the use of the state, and all other public uses
34 authorized by the Legislature[.];
35 (3) (a) public buildings and grounds for the use of any county, city [or incorporated],
36 town, or board of education;
37 (b) reservoirs, canals, aqueducts, flumes, ditches, or pipes for conducting water for the
38 use of the inhabitants of any county [or], city, or [incorporated] town, or for the draining of any
39 county, city, or [incorporated] town;
40 (c) the raising of the banks of streams, removing obstructions [therefrom] from
41 streams, and widening, deepening, or straightening their channels;
42 (d) bicycle paths and sidewalks adjacent to paved roads;
43 (e) roads, streets, and alleys for public vehicular use, excluding:
44 (i) trails, paths, or other ways for walking, hiking, bicycling, equestrian use, or other
45 recreational uses, or whose primary purpose is as a foot path, equestrian trail, bicycle path, or
46 walkway; and
47 (ii) paths, lanes, or other ways for emergency access; and
48 (f) all other public uses for the benefit of any county, city, or [incorporated] town, or
49 [the] their inhabitants [thereof.];
50 (4) wharves, docks, piers, chutes, booms, ferries, bridges, toll roads, byroads, plank
51 and turnpike roads, roads for transportation by traction engines or road locomotives, roads for
52 logging or lumbering purposes, and railroads and street railways for public transportation[.];
53 (5) reservoirs, dams, watergates, canals, ditches, flumes, tunnels, aqueducts and pipes
54 for the supplying of persons, mines, mills, smelters or other works for the reduction of ores,
55 with water for domestic or other uses, or for irrigation purposes, or for the draining and
56 reclaiming of lands, or for the floating of logs and lumber on streams not navigable, or for solar
57 evaporation ponds and other facilities for the recovery of minerals in solution[.];
58 (6) roads, railroads, tramways, tunnels, ditches, flumes, pipes and dumping places to

59 facilitate the milling, smelting or other reduction of ores, or the working of mines, quarries,
60 coal mines or mineral deposits including minerals in solution; outlets, natural or otherwise,
61 for the deposit or conduct of tailings, refuse or water from mills, smelters or other works for
62 the reduction of ores, or from mines, quarries, coal mines or mineral deposits including
63 minerals in solution; mill dams; gas, oil or coal pipelines, tanks or reservoirs, including any
64 subsurface stratum or formation in any land for the underground storage of natural gas, and in
65 connection therewith such other interests in property as may be required adequately to
66 examine, prepare, maintain, and operate such underground natural gas storage facilities; and
67 solar evaporation ponds and other facilities for the recovery of minerals in solution; also any
68 occupancy in common by the owners or possessors of different mines, quarries, coal mines,
69 mineral deposits, mills, smelters, or other places for the reduction of ores, or any place for the
70 flow, deposit or conduct of tailings or refuse matter[.];
71 (7) byroads leading from highways to residences and farms[.];
72 (8) telegraph, telephone, electric light and electric power lines, and sites for electric
73 light and power plants[.];
74 (9) sewerage of any city or town, or of any settlement of not less than ten families, or
75 of any public building belonging to the state, or of any college or university[.];
76 (10) canals, reservoirs, dams, ditches, flumes, aqueducts and pipes for supplying and
77 storing water for the operation of machinery for the purpose of generating and transmitting
78 electricity for power, light or heat[.];
79 (11) cemeteries and public parks[.], except for a park whose primary use is:
80 (a) as a trail, path, or other way for walking, hiking, bicycling, or equestrian use; or
81 (b) to connect other trails, paths, or other ways for walking, hiking, bicycling, or
82 equestrian use;
83 (12) pipe lines for the purpose of conducting any and all liquids connected with the
84 manufacture of beet sugar[.]; and
85 (13) sites for mills, smelters or other works for the reduction of ores and necessary to
86 the successful operation thereof, including the right to take lands for the discharge and natural
87 distribution of smoke, fumes and dust therefrom, produced by the operation of such works;
88 provided, that the powers granted by this subdivision shall not be exercised in any county
89 where the population exceeds [twenty thousand] 20,000, or within one mile of the limits of any

90 city or incorporated town; nor unless the proposed condemner has the right to operate by
91 purchase, option to purchase or easement, at least [seventy-five per cent] 75% in value of land
92 acreage owned by persons or corporations situated within a radius of four miles from the mill,
93 smelter or other works for the reduction of ores; nor beyond the limits of said four-mile radius;
94 nor as to lands covered by contracts, easements or agreements existing between the condemner
95 and the owner of land within said limit and providing for the operation of such mill, smelter or
96 other works for the reduction of ores; nor until an action shall have been commenced to restrain
97 the operation of such mill, smelter or other works for the reduction of ores.




Legislative Review Note
as of 12-13-07 11:23 AM

Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel