Norfolk, Va. - The fight over property rights in Norfolk has now come to an end.
The State Supreme Court issued a ruling that could mean the City of Norfolk has to pay big.
Norfolk landowners took the city all the way to the State's Supreme Court over this property and the landowners won.
This Supreme Court's decision is years in the making.
It all started when Norfolk took several properties around Old Dominion University.
The decision just came down from Supreme Court today, Thursday, September 12. It states that the fight over property rights at ODU is over, in favor of the landowners.
It all centers around an apartment building near ODU, which is now boarded up. But it wasn't always boarded up. The ruling also affects other properties in the area, and more importantly, ODU's expansion plans - plans that came at the expenses of private property owners.
Back in 2010, the General Assembly passed a law that said if a property is in good condition, the government can't seize it just because it is deemed to be in a "bad" area.
Lawmakers were concerned that some local governments had been seizing properties, bundling them together and then selling those parcels to developers. In this particular case, Norfolk and ODU said because their plans had been going on for so long, they did not have to follow the law "because their plans were on the books for a long time."
