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November 10, 2006
If Yards suit fails, so does America
The Brooklyn Papers, Letter to the Editor
To the editor,
I was dismayed to read that the latest Atlantic Yards lawsuit is not being given much chance of success by legal experts (“‘Eminent’ suit on Yards called a longshot,” Nov. 4).
I won’t question the legal minds quoted in Ariella Cohen’s piece, but if those experts are right, this country is in trouble.
The Supreme Court’s Kelo decision perverted hundreds of years of American tradition, namely that government should only condemn privately owned property to make room for something — a hospital, highway, bridge — that has a clear public benefit.
In Kelo, the Court ruled that such land can be taken and transferred to private developers like Bruce Ratner. Locally, Atlantic Yards is the first bitter fruit of that ruling.
I, for one, am happy that people are suing. Atlantic Yards may indeed have some public benefit, but it is mostly a land-grab by the state on behalf of the very well-connected Bruce Ratner. If the lawsuit fails, alas, our country has failed.
Reginald Saunders, Fort Greene
NoLandGrab: The Kelo decision did indeed allow for land to "be taken and transferred to private developers like Bruce Ratner."
However, Justice Kennedy wrote in a concurring opinion (download PDF), "A court applying rational-basis review under the Public Use Clause should strike down a taking that, by a clear showing, is intended to favor a particular private party, with only incidental or pretextual public benefits." Does that sound familiar?
Even though the Kelo case allowed for private property to be given to developers, it also said that there were limits to this power. Based upon Justice Kennedy's opinion, Atlantic Yards may be a very good test case for these limits.
Posted by lumi at November 10, 2006 8:48 AM