County Executive Kenneth Ulman has stepped away from a developer's negotiations with a homeowners association in an Ellicott City neighborhood, and it's the right move.

Ulman's capital budget proposal for the coming fiscal year had included money "to acquire an easement" in Spring Ridge.

What the budget line didn't tell you is that the money was earmarked for expenses associated with seizing a portion of a wooded plot owned by the homeowners association to run a sewer line to some adjoining property on which developer Ron Carter intends to put some new houses.

The budget item constituted a threat by the county to exercise government's power of eminent domain to take the homeowners association's land unless it could come to terms with Carter.

As residents balked and media began to take notice, county officials protested Carter would already have an easement for lines to the property but for 35-year-old mistake in the land records, and that the current owners of the land Carter wants to build on have the right to ask for public water and sewer service.

But eminent domain should be used only as a last resort, and only when necessary to serve a clear and significant public need. It is meant for the acquisition of property for hospitals, schools and the like, not for a privately funded housing development, nor for that matter even a sewer hookup for a single residence.

Ulman insisted last week that eminent domain was indeed a last resort in this case, but there's no getting around the idea that this budget item was an ax hanging over the residents' heads.

Ulman now has removed the eminent-domain threat from the equation, acknowledging that resident protests were a factor. Whatever his reasons, he's made the right decision, and now a fair negotiation can proceed.

We'd further like from him a pledge to never again consider employing eminent domain for the sake of private development. The County Council should also consider legislation to that effect.

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