Rhode Island family defeats town’s unconstitutional land grab

Johnston, Rhode Island; July 28, 2026: Today, a federal court struck down a Rhode Island town’s attempt to use eminent domain to block a family of homebuilders’ affordable housing development. The court declared that the Town of Johnston’s land grab was “constitutionally deficient” and “void from its inception,” holding that the Town could not use eminent domain to take the Santoro family’s property.

“Despite lacking any legal authority to do so, the Town of Johnston seized the Santoro family’s land without notice, registered itself as the new owner, and threatened them with trespass if they dared to enter their own property. But the court saw through this sham and struck it down,” said Kady Valois, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “The U.S. Constitution and Rhode Island law limit how the government can use eminent domain against property owners, and we’re grateful the court enforced these limitations today. This ruling reins in the Town’s obvious abuse of power and protects every American whose land a government might decide it wants.”

Rhode Island homebuilders and property managers Ralph and Suzanne Santoro, alongside Ralph’s sister Lucille and their business partner Sal Compagnone, have owned property in Johnston for 40 years. When Rhode Island passed a 2023 law to encourage privately built affordable housing, the family designed a 252-unit complex on 31 acres to accommodate that level of development. Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena Jr. vowed to “use all the power of government that I have to stop” the project. In January 2025, the Town moved to seize the land by eminent domain, claiming it needed the property for a new municipal complex. That proposed use was fabricated to stop the Santoros’ affordable housing project.

With today’s ruling, the Santoros can move forward with the housing Rhode Island has said for years that it needs. The decision affirms a basic limit on government power: the government cannot take property unless it strictly adheres to the law’s limitations on eminent domain. Local governments cannot simply make up their own procedures when trying to take private property.

Pacific Legal Foundation represents the family free of charge. The case is SCLS Realty, LLC and Sixty Three Johnston, LLC v. Town of Johnston, RI.

Photography by Richard Schultz.