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December 7, 2009
When can't New York take your land
NY Post
by Steven Malanga
A New York appellate court last week harshly rejected the state's effort to take property from businesses in upper Manhattan and give it to Columbia University for its campus expansion, calling it a "scheme" hatched by the university and the state and labeling their arguments in favor of invoking eminent domain, the government power to seize private property, as "mere sophistry."
Yet for decades the state has confiscated private property on the slimmest of pretexts, often vastly underpaying, and in the process ruined businesses and lives. The Institute for Justice, an Arlington, Va.-based, public-interest group, recently called New York one of the worst eminent-domain abusers in the country.
Only the state Legislature can fix this problem with a new law to rein in these abuses.
...Little has changed, especially in the case of businesses that don't own their own locations. For them, eminent domain is often a death knell because the state pays little in takings cases. To take one recent example, many of the estimated 55 businesses the city displaced to make way for the New York Times tower on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st streets either never reopened or relocated and have since succumbed.
...New York's is one of the few legislatures that hasn't acted, but the need is clear. Reform would include:
- A stricter definition of "blight" land so that officials can't declare even a thriving neighborhood to be devastated just so they can seize property in it.
- A ban on government taking property from one private citizen to transfer to another private citizen for redevelopment merely to enhance the value of the land.
We should all shudder at the notion that state or local officials could one day seize our property simply because they think someone else could make it more valuable.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Manhattan Institute's Malanga: two basic reforms needed in state eminent domain laws
Let me add some details, since Malanga barely mentioned Atlantic Yards.
Surely the designation of cracked sidewalks as blight (right, in Brooklyn) by consultants for the Empire State Development Corporation in both the Columbia and Atlantic Yards cases deserves a rethink.
And a lawyer for the Empire State Development Corporation was asked in the Atlantic Yards oral argument October 14, “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?”
His response: “Under New York State constitutional law, yes, it is."
The Manhattan Institute, which has a libertarian bent, is alarmed. So are others of a different philosophical bent, like state Senator Bill Perkins. The issue won't go away.
Posted by eric at December 7, 2009 9:55 PM