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On the other hand, what if, as Fox insists, the house was not a nuisance? Fox still
cannot sustain an inverse condemnation claim because he cannot demonstrate the essential
element of the city’s “public use.” See AGCS, 800 S.E.2d at 163. Section 1-219.1(A)
contains an exclusive list of six “public uses,” only one of which—the elimination of
blighted property—is potentially applicable here. According to the statute, “[b]lighted
property means any property” (1) “that endangers the public health or safety”; and (2) is
“a public nuisance” or a structure “beyond repair or unfit for human . . . use.” Va. Code
Ann. § 1-219.1(B). And Virginia defines a nuisance as an unsafe or dangerous structure
“which constitute[s] a menace to the health and safety of the occupants thereof or the
public.” Id. § 15.2-900.7
Both “blighted property” and “public nuisance” require property to endanger public
health or safety.8 See id. §§ 1-219.1(B); 15.2-900. As a result, if Fox is right that the house
posed no danger to public health or safety, he’s correct that it is not a nuisance under
Virginia law. But for the same reason, it did not constitute blight. See id. § 1-219.1(B). And
since eliminating blight is the only potentially applicable public use here, Fox cannot show
7
Virginia common law has a similar definition. Under it, a public nuisance
“affect[s] injuriously, some thing, or right, in which the community, as a body politic, have
a common interest . . . .” Commonwealth v. Webb, 27 Va. (6 Rand.) 726, 727 (Va. 1828).
8
Why then would a city ever exercise eminent domain—where it must pay just
compensation—when it could abate a nuisance without that financial obligation? Under
eminent domain, the city can acquire title to the property. If a city wants to take title to
blighted property for some public redevelopment, it must proceed under its eminent domain
authority. And if it fails to pay just compensation, that taking will serve as the basis of an
inverse condemnation claim in Virginia.
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