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November 28, 2009
Atlantic Yards Decision Blow To Private Property Rights In New York
Islandlaw Constitutional Rights Pages
The definition of blight, according to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, is “Something that frustrates plans or hopes, …or something that impairs and destroys.” Both of these definitions could be used to describe the impact of this week’s Court of Appeals decision upon private property rights in New York State. Chief Judge Lippman wrote a detailed,12 page decision in Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corporation that can be summed up in one sentence: Blight means anything the New York State Development Corporation says it means.
With this decision, New York has given the green light to private developers to try to take private property from its citizens, so long as enough money is funneled into local politician’s hands to get approvals. That’s because the Court has decided that these takings are legal if the municipal entity determines that the property is in an area that suffers from economic “blight.” Mr. Goldstein’s condo is worth about half a million bucks, a veritable slum in the eyes of the New York Court of Appeals.
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It is especially troubling to me that the Court rubber stamped a decision made by the New York State Urban Development Corporation. This corporation is a subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation, a public authority of the State of New York. Its powers are practically limitless, and include the power to issue bonds, grant tax abatements, ignore zoning laws, and, of course, condemn land and seize property. What makes this more scary is that The Empire State Development Corporation doesn’t have a great track record in overseeing its subsidiaries.
If the State’s highest court refuses to check the power of this Leviathan, who will?
NoLandGrab: Stay tuned to see how pending and new legal challenges will affect the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by steve at November 28, 2009 6:02 AM