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October 28, 2009
The Specter of Condemnation: What Isn't Public Use?
The Huffington Post
by Daniel Goldstein
Since Kelo 43 states have reformed their eminent domain laws. New York, as the Wall Street Journal so ironically put it, has been a holdout from those reforms. Notoriously dysfunctional Albany has barely put the issue on its radar. That’s why the first post-Kelo public use case to make it to New York State’s high court, which was argued on October 14th, is so important. Without legislative protections the court is the last place for New Yorkers to gain some semblance of assurance that their home is not just some placeholder ripe for plucking when the state thinks some “benefit” may accrue from its seizure.
As of now, though, there is basically no protection for property owners and tenants in New York. If a condemning authority, such as the Empire State Development Corporation, or New York City’s Economic Development Corporation, staples together enough pieces of paper that make speculative claims about some amorphous “public benefits”—then your home will become theirs to transfer to private developers for their enrichment.
Such is the case with the use of eminent domain for the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards project, which is what the Court is now considering. If public use can mean public “benefit,” then it can literally mean whatever the state wants it to mean, and leads to the non-rhetorical question: What isn’t a public use?
Posted by eric at October 28, 2009 10:50 AM