A Democratic congressman whose Brooklyn district includes the site of the proposed Atlantic Yards development, Major Owens, is being accused of hypocrisy for his seemingly contradictory stances in the debate over eminent domain.

In a rap poem composed last March, Mr. Owens, who touts himself as the “Rappin’ Rep,” expressed his desire to limit the authority of city and state officials to use eminent domain to transfer property from one private landowner to another. The opening lines of the rap poem read: “Fight the pain, defeat the strain, rally all together, destroy eminent domain. Monster on the street, grabs any home to eat, greedy rape the snakes repeat.”

Late last month, however, when a New Jersey Republican, Scott Garrett, proposed an amendment to limit federal funds for some private projects that make use of eminent domain, Mr. Owens voted against the measure.

The issue of eminent domain is particularly relevant to Mr. Owens’s constituents because the Atlantic Yards in his 11th Congressional District are the site of real estate firm Forest City Ratner’s proposed 21-acre high-rise urban hub. About 40% of the area that would be covered by Forest City Ratner’s project is owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is looking to sell the property, but many private property owners would be uprooted.

A spokesman for the anti-Ratner group Develop Don’t Destroy, Daniel Goldstein, said that by his best estimate, approximately 20 landowners in the blocks surrounding the MTA rail yards have refused to sell their properties to Forest City Ratner and would therefore face their property’s condemnation and forced sale through eminent domain. Forest City Ratner has said that more than 90% of the landowners in the area that would be covered by the high-rise hub, which includes an arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team, have agreed to sell their properties to the firm.

Mr. Owens has been a vociferous opponent of the Ratner plan. In last March’s rap poem, the congressman, who has announced his plans to retire from the House next year, wrote: “Brave neighbors to the front, block the vicious Ratner stunt, clean air he robs, for invisible jobs.”

But Mr. Owens’s vote against the Garrett amendment has perplexed some eminent-domain opponents. The president of the Property Rights Foundation of America, Carol LaGrasse, said of the Garrett amendment: “That’s just the kind of thing that a person who has a rap poem to destroy eminent domain should be for.”

The Garrett amendment came in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. New London last month, in which the justices, on 5-4 vote, upheld a lower court’s ruling allowing the Connecticut town to seize land from Susette Kelo and six other homeowners to accommodate a $270 million research facility for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Late last month, the House passed a resolution expressing its “grave disapproval” of the Supreme Court’s decision in the case. Mr. Owens voted for that resolution.

In a phone interview Tuesday with The New York Sun, Mr. Garrett said Mr. Owens “is not putting his money where his mouth is.” The New Jersey Republican said he did not understand why Mr. Owens would compose a poem blasting eminent domain and then vote against the Garrett amendment. “I can’t put the two together,” Mr. Garrett said. “I guess he likes rap.”

Two of Mr. Owens’s spokesmen, Omar Banmally and Norman Meyer, did not return repeated requests for comment.

But the congressman’s son, Christopher Owens, who has announced that he is a candidate for the 11th District seat in 2006, said he, too, would have opposed the Garrett amendment.

“I don’t think, based on what I’ve read, that the language was specific enough,” the younger Mr. Owens said. He said that although he opposed the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private property owner to another, he might support its use for “economic development” in some instances.

“You’re opening the door to stopping things that are justified,” the younger Mr. Owens said.

Spokesmen for Senators Clinton and Schumer did not return repeated requests for comment on the pending legislation.

Mr. Schumer has endorsed the Ratner plan. According to Mr. Goldstein of Develop Don’t Destroy, Clinton aides met privately with the group about 15 months ago. Mr. Goldstein said his group received a “fair listening,” but Mrs. Clinton has not issued a public statement on the Ratner plan.