« Hills & Gardens
Boerum Hill’s New Voice |
Main
| ELECTIONS 2009: THE RACE FOR MAYOR »
August 6, 2009
Brooklyn Land Grab Opponents Allege Government Corruption
OpenMarket.org
by Marc Scribner
Free marketeers the Competitive Enterprise Institute weigh in on the problem with ED.
The proposed Atlantic Yards project is financed in part by $1.6 billion+ in government subsidies. Forest City Ratner, the developer, is attempting to seize many of the affected parcels through eminent domain in order to construct high rise commercial and residential towers, along with a 20,000-seat arena. As noted by Daniel B. Kelly in the forthcoming Supreme Court Economic Review 2009 (ungated working paper available at SSRN), illegal pretextual takings–use of eminent domain when a deal between government and preferred private developer has already been reached–are far more common when development agencies author environmental impact statements and undertake “blight” determination studies. These analyses typically ignore current local economic trends and attempt to paint the economic landscape in the bleakest terms possible in order to convince the appropriate bureaucrats that a state-run, public-private “economic rehabilitation” plan is neccessary.
But, largely due to the poorly-reasoned majority opinion in Kelo v. New London, property owners now often face a Sisyphean task when they are forced to confront an unholy alliance between government bureaucrats and rent-seeking private developers.
Posted by eric at August 6, 2009 1:19 PM