Concept of public use

There is no precise meaning of “public use” and the term is susceptible of myriad meanings depending on diverse situations. The limited meaning attached to “public use” is “use by the public” or “public employment”, that “a duty must devolve on the person or corporation holding property appropriated by right of eminent domain to furnish the public with the use intended, and that there must be a right on the part of the public, or some portion of it, or some public or quasi-public agency on behalf of the public, to use the property after it is condemned.” The more generally accepted view sees “public use” as “public advantage, convenience, or benefit, and that anything which tends to enlarge the resources, increase the industrial energies, and promote the productive power of any considerable number of inhabitants of a section of the state, or which leads to the growth of towns and the creation of new resources for the employment of capital and labor, which contributes to the general welfare and the prosperity of the whole community.” In this jurisdiction, “public use” is defined as “whatever is beneficially employed for the community.