Eminent domain creep strikes again.

Two Colorado cities are squabbling over land like neighbors feuding over landscaping and this time one party has gone too far.

It’d be one thing for Lafayette city officials to oppose the Town of Erie’s aggressive decision to purchase and subsequently annex and rezone land adjacent to Lafayette borders. And Lafayette officials would even be justified in questioning Erie’s plans to offer developers significant tax incentives to build on the land.

But Lafayette has crossed a line. The city is trying to seize the land using eminent domain, a limited tool that allows the government to force an owner to sell a property at its fair market value if the land is needed for a public good, like a road or bus depot.

Lafayette officials want the land for open space.

We’ve been down this road before, and we think it’s not only a questionable use of eminent domain to take land for open space, but an incredible overreach to take land that isn’t even inside city limits.

Consider for a moment if it were a private citizen wanting to develop the almost 30 acres located southeast of U.S. 287 and Arapahoe Road. The concept that a nearby city would try to claim that land in the name of public good — not for needed storm drainage that could go no place else, but for open space — is a violation of the property rights that helped found this nation.

That’s why this board disagreed with a 2008 ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court that opened the floodgates for exactly that type of bad behavior. In that case, Telluride was permitted to condemn 572 acres outside its city limits for open space. The landowner, with plans to develop the land, understandably fought the effort.

We wrote then that former Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid got it right in her dissenting opinion. She wrote that the state constitution gives condemnation powers for specific purposes, such as water works and light and power plants. Historically, Eid wrote, the court has been quite cautious about condemnations outside municipal borders.

Now the Colorado Court of Appeals will consider whether Lafayette should be granted the power of eminent domain in this case. We hope wiser heads prevail and Colorado judges begin exercising a restrained approach, however, we also understand the binding nature of precedent set by the Supreme Court of this state.

Which brings home the point: Perhaps this is an issue where Colorado’s constitution needs to be amended to bring clarity to the matter and sanity to this dispute between Erie and Lafayette.

In the meantime, both cities should stop acting like slighted neighbors escalating a turf war and come up with a reasonable compromise. There must be a way to buffer homes in Lafayette from proposed commercial development in Erie without compromising the ability of a landowner to pursue the highest and best use of a parcel.