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September 22, 2008
Victorious Senate Democrats Could Target Eminent Domain
NY Sun
by Peter Kiefer
This seems like wishful thinking on the part of the conservative Sun, but there are individual senators, like Harlem's Bill Perkins, who genuinely are on the side of home and business owners.
A Democratic takeover of the Senate in November could result in changes to the state's eminent domain law, possibly complicating several of the city's largest development projects.
State Senator Bill Perkins, a Democrat of Harlem, is calling for a moratorium on the use of eminent domain and said he is willing to push for more restrictions on the use of eminent domain, provided the political climate is right in Albany.
"I don't know of too many other issues where you have such diverse and pervasive outrage," he said yesterday in an interview.
Mr. Perkins said he would be meeting with Governor Paterson this week to discuss the findings of a hearing he held last week examining the possible use of eminent domain for the proposed $7 billion expansion of Columbia University's campus. He said Mr. Paterson was "supportive" of his work on eminent domain, but said he had not discussed specifics with the governor.
NoLandGrab: The Governor, of course, called for just such a moratorium when he was a state Senator, but now that he's got the juice to actually do something about it, he's been silent on the issue.
A spokesman for the Mayor's office, unsurprisingly, claimed erroneously that the city uses eminent domain only when it's "absolutely needed for an important public purpose, and even then, as a last resort." Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Posted by eric at September 22, 2008 8:55 AM