« “Us Against Ourselves”? No, me and many others against Atlantic Yards | Main | A Bloomberg Score Card: The Mayor's Hits and Misses »
October 16, 2009
If court rules wrongly, desperate times may call for desperate takings
NY Fiscal Watch
by Nicole Gelinas
Homebuyer beware.
New York State and City are increasingly desperate for tax revenue. This desperation makes the highest state court’s upcoming ruling on whether the Empire State Development Corp. (ESDC) has the right to seize private property for the Atlantic Yards redevelopment project in Brooklyn very important to private property rights here.
The most significant component of Atlantic Yards is high-rise, market-rate apartment buildings. The state has declared the property blighted, and thus fit for condemnation, not based on dangerous or unsanitary conditions, but largely on “underutilization” — that is, that people aren’t using their property to the maximum allowed under the law.
In arguments this week, one judge asked the state’s lawyer: “is it the law of New York that if I own a house in an area that the government thinks could be improved, a perfectly nice house, it’s a clean house, nothing particularly wrong with the area, but it could be better, more vibrant, more dynamic businesses, is that enough for the government to [condemn and seize] the house?”
The state’s answer: “Under New York State constitutional law, yes, it is.”
...The court, then, has a chance to reassert the state constitution in the Atlantic Yards case.
If it does not, anyone who lives in an “underutilized” property — like a three-story brownstone on a lot that’s fit for a skyscraper — should be very worried. His property is only his subject to Albany’s disinclination to seize it in an attempt to squeeze out more tax revenues for the ever-insatiated political interests.
Posted by eric at October 16, 2009 4:57 PM