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March 27, 2006

Eminent Domainia: Fighting local takings

Manhattanville
Columbia Spectator, Stringer Skeptical of CU Expansion
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's support for the community oppposing Columbia University's planned expansion could pose a problem for the project, which, unlike Atlantic Yards, must go through the local review process. At issue is eminent domain, forced displacement of tenants and a truly fair Community Benefits Agreement.

“I want to promise you that as long as I’m borough president I’m going to do everything I can so that Columbia cannot run roughshod over this community,” he said at a meeting of the Coalition to Preserve Community, a group that has protested the expansion plans.
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Stringer expressed opposition to the use of eminent domain to take property in Manhattanville and suggested he would be willing to use his vote in the Uniform Land Use Review Process, the procedure for approving rezoning of the area, to leverage Columbia into taking it off the table. “I’m not for eminent domain, and I do have a role in this ULURP process,” he said. Columbia has asked the state to consider using eminent domain to forcibly buy properties from business owners who have refused to sell, though they say it remains a last resort.
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“Columbia left to their own devices has a thirty year record of evicting tenants, of not dealing with the community,” Stringer said. ...
He said a CBA would have to be truly beneficial to win his support. “I’m not here to stand behind a false agreement,” he said, adding, “CBAs that are negotiated behind closed doors... set a dangerous precedent.”

Longbranch, NJ
NJEminentDomain.com
Read the lastest developments in the MTOTSA residents' (Marine Terrace, Ocean Terrace, Seaview Avenue) fight to save their homes.

North Hills, NY
The NY Times, Of the Rich, Eminent Domain ... and Golf (Times Select login required)

If they ever decide to rewrite "The Great Gatsby" as a land-use and property law textbook, it will read pretty much like the battle between the haves and the have-mores now playing out on the North Shore of Long Island.
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North Hills has just about everything except one thing: its own community golf course for the use of the village, which is something residents of the neighboring villages of Lake Success and Sands Point have.

And so, in a rather startling entry into terrain once associated with condemning land for highways or bulldozing blighted communities, North Hills is considering using powers of eminent domain to take the golf course from its current members and give it to the residents of North Hills.

Posted by lumi at March 27, 2006 7:24 AM