In a free market, you and the developer agree on a price, and you choose if you want to sell or not.

In socialism, the government takes your land because in their mind it's not your land really.

Here it sounds to me that issue is the owners did not want to sell at the price offered, hence the government forces it, meaning we're closer to the central socialist form of government.

People, you can't have the socialist government that brings us wonderful services like Amtrak, VA, Post Office, DMV, etc... and maintain your freedoms, you only get one.