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November 24, 2009
FAQ on the Court of Appeals decision in the Atlantic Yards case
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder posted an FAQ on today's state high court ruling.
Basically, one justice agreed with the property owners, two didn't even think that the case belonged in the high court, and nearly all of the petitioners' arguments were ignored, i.e.:
- the "argument that the state didn't perform an (allegedly) required comparison of public and private benefits,"
- the "gerrymandered" site map,
- "argument that blight was a pretext because it wasn't mentioned as a justification for the project more than a year after it was announced,
The prize for irony goes to "mild conditions of blight":
From the majority opinion:
The land use improvement plan at issue is not directed at the wholesale eradication of slums, but rather at alleviating relatively mild conditions of urban blight principally attributable to a large and, of course, uninhabited subgrade rail cut.
This raises the question: can't such blight be alleviated in other ways, such as rezoning the land and putting it out for bid?
NoLandGrab: The ruling found that blight conditions on and caused by State property, comprising of one-third of the project site, is ample justification for the State to use eminent domain? This doesn't even pass the smell test.
Posted by lumi at November 24, 2009 6:28 PM