Why does Colorado need a constitutional amendment restricting the use of eminent domain? Just watch the city of Sheridan at work. Its redevelopment agency is seizing 31.5 acres from one developer in order to give it to a more powerful developer who has big-box stores as clients.

We understand the temptation to use condemnation to generate a presumably bigger tax base. After all, it's so much easier than having to negotiate with various prickly landowners.

But that doesn't make it right. Governments should condemn only for public purposes like roads and airports, or when private property has become a threat to health or safety. But local jurisdictions should not be playing favorites by condemning one owner's property in order to give it to another private party - even if they think they'll get more tax money as a result. Additional tax revenue is not our idea of a constitutional public "use" as permitted by the Fifth Amendment.

Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court's misguided and wildly unpopular Kelo decision last year, legislatures across the country have been responding to public demand for limiting condemnation. Colorado is no exception. Several bills are under consideration in the legislature. The best ones are proposed constitutional amendments - as they must be if they are to overcome the resistance of home-rule cities who might think they need not heed a mere statute.

New laws can't be retroactive, so it's probably too late to save the property owners in Sheridan. The city has its eyes on 300 acres southwest of the intersection of South Santa Fe Drive and West Hampden Avenue. Using the usual "blight" excuse, the city has already strong-armed most of the property owners into submission. It's expensive to fight city hall. But at least two are resisting: HBC LLC, owner of the 31.5 acres, and Lochness Properties, owner of another five acres.

HBC is a particularly interesting case, because it too is a developer and had presented the city with plans for retail, commercial and residential buildings on its property. But it was told to stop once the city heard the siren song sung by Miller Weingarten, a developer with Target and Costco in tow and long experience in getting cities to use condemnation.

It's bad enough to take land from a business owner who just wants to stay put; it's worse to allow one developer to take the land of another developer who has his own plans to improve the property.

But this week an Arapahoe district judge sided with the city's development authority, saying it had met the letter of the current condemnation laws.

We can only hope that Lochness, which is represented by the Mountain States Legal Foundation, does better when its case goes to trial in April.

Meanwhile, either the legislature or a group of citizens should put a measure on the state ballot for the benefit of other property owners.

SHERIDAN OFFERS EXHIBIT A