If you're worried about the government's ability to seize your property, this could make you feel better: Greenville County explicitly pledged Tuesday to limit its seizure of private land for public use.

Some County Council members who voted for the measure said the unanimous votes changes little but amounts to a "clarification" of the county's unofficial eminent domain policy in an election year where the effect of government decisions on your property could become a hot-button issue.

Councilman Mark Kingsbury, who proposed the bill, said he agreed to change controversial wording that some feared would also make it tougher to control future growth.

A portion that equated some strict zoning designations to government "taking" your property was removed. Council Chairman Butch Kirven said it could have prompted other property owners to sue the county over any zoning decisions under the logic the county had similarly "taken" their land.

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Dr. Catherine Ross, director of the Center for Quality Growth at Georgia Tech, said it was a bad idea that would have made growth more haphazard and made it harder to protect property.

However, Tuesday's amendments meant that the bill's final version was different from the one that received a public hearing two weeks ago. Kingsbury said that's what the hearing was for.

"That's why you have a public hearing, to get their input," he said. "Then you make changes."

But the late amendments required a special vote from council, which normally does not allow measures to be changed just before the final vote.

The measure was a response to what Kirven called the "sensational" outcry generated nationally by a Supreme Court case involving Connecticut landowners and locally by lawsuits over the City of Greenville's seizure of downtown land.

The city lost those cases, costing it more than $6 million in damages and legal fees.

Preserved in Tuesday's bill is a pledge that the county must get property owners' permission before imposing strict zoning designations on rural property that would prevent the owners from splitting the land into small parcels.

Council's approval was unanimous Tuesday. The measure becomes law today.