I think that it's clearly theft. Theft is when someone deprives another of the use of their property without their consent.
Eminent Domain can be justifiable under some circumstances, but it's still theft.
Eminent Domain can be justifiable under some circumstances, but it's still theft.
I think that's well within the scope of this conversation, but if we're going to be worried about the conversion of a private golf course into housing then we should really talk about what happened with Native American land treaties.
tl;dr: if we're redefining theft then that opens a huge can of worms.