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January 21, 2010
Eminent Domain is Alive and Well
Real Estate Economy Watch
by Steve Cook
This error-prone article gets one thing right — New York is one messed-up state when it comes to eminent domain abuse.
Much of the attention lately has focused on New York, one of the few states that has not passed legislation in the wake of the Kelo decision and continues to allow condemnations for economic development purposes. In 2002, Columbia University announced plans to expand its campus onto 17 acres in West Harlem, which would displace 400 residents and light industrial businesses employing more than 1,600 people. Last month Columbia University lost an appellate court decision on the grounds that it had failed to make a case for the use of eminent domain.
The New York Nets basketball team, however, won the court’s approval to build a new home for the team in the much-litigated Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, a case that is being appealed to the state supreme court. Hundreds of families live in the project’s 22-acre footprint. In another Brooklyn project, the Barclays Bank Center on Prospect Heights, the denizens of a local bar have vowed cuff themselves to the “Chains of Justice” that manager has conveniently installed on the bar. “Because people like bars and people hate banks,” explained the manager.
Posted by eric at January 21, 2010 4:31 PM