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June 29, 2007
Anti-Ratner Forces Join With Queens, Harlem Groups
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Raanan Geberer
What brought the various groups together was opposition to what they term abuse of eminent domain, or the seizure of private land for the benefit of private developers rather than strictly public projects. In the case of Forest City Ratner’s planned Atlantic Yards arena-office-housing project in Downtown Brooklyn, the possible use of eminent domain against the relatively small number of “holdouts” on the site has been justified on the grounds that Atlantic Yards will serve the greater good of economic development.
Readers are undoubtedly familiar with Atlantic Yards, but not necessarily with the other cases. However, there are similarities. In Willets Point, Queens, near Flushing, developers are coveting a somewhat rundown area of small businesses, garages and private homes to build a mall and hotel. In West Harlem, Columbia University seeks to obtain 17 acres in the 120s and 130s west of Broadway, an area characterized by warehouses, garages and some residential buildings, to build a biotech lab complex that would be augmented with shopping and restaurants.
NoLandGrab: What Geberer fails to understand is that every eminent domain-abuse fight has only a handful of "holdouts" — that is, property owners who have the guts to tough it out for a long fight with local or state government.
Anyway, since when did the US Constitution only go into effect when more than a "relatively small number" of people are affected?
Posted by lumi at June 29, 2007 10:43 AM