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November 26, 2009
Did Atlantic Yards Ruling Pass the Buck on 'Blight'?
Runnin' Scared
by Elizabeth Dwoskin
Tuesday's Atlantic Yards decision, in which New York's highest court upheld the right of the state to seize private property on behalf of a mega-developer, will doubtlessly impact the lives of thousands of Brooklyn residents and be discussed for years to come.
But the court backed off from a central question: Whether the site in downtown Brooklyn is truly "blighted."
In many ways, the entire case boils down to that loosely-defined word.
...In order to make the case that the project would have a legitimate public use -- a necessary criterion for granting eminent domain -- Ratner and ESDC had to convince the court that the area was blighted. (The local residents who brought the lawsuit argued that, while much of the area is underutilized, their section of it is actually a very pleasant place to live.)
Blight studies have been disputed in other New York eminent domain cases -- like the lawsuit brought over Columbia University's contentious Manhattanville expansion project -- on the grounds that they have been financed by developers with a stake in their results.
Since the Atlantic Yards case hinged on the blight question, one would expect the Court of Appeals to have debated the questions of whether the area was actually in decay. But the majority decision, at least, brushed it off.
...The lone dissenter in the case, Judge Smith, took on the blight issue directly, and claimed his colleagues were sidestepping the issue.
Posted by eric at November 26, 2009 11:32 AM