« Bramson’s Scheme to Over-Ride Cuomo’s Tax-Cap Will Saddle New Rochelle With Large Post-Election Tax Increase | Main | City Council Takes to the Streets »
November 7, 2011
This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land: Eminent Domain and Public Benefit
The Legal Infrastructure of Business
by Randal C. Picker
How is the Keystone XL pipeline like Atlantic Yards — other than that both are really bad ideas that could have huge, underplayed environmental impacts? This is how.
Eminent Domain has always been something that has fascinated me. It was brought very much to my attention when I was living in New York back in 2009, due to the bitter battle being fought over Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. A state government agency sought to seize land from a group of landowners in order to give a developer property on which to construct Atlantic Yards, a new arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team. The landowners alleged that the state did not have the rights to seize property to benefit a private developer. Ultimately, New York’s state supreme court ruled in the agency’s favor.
For those not familiar with the term, Eminent Domain is an action by a state to seize private property, providing compensation, but without the owner’s consent. Usually eminent domain is invoked for the building of projects fostering economic development or for public use, such as highways or public utilities. Often the government must first attempt to purchase the property before resorting to the use of eminent domain.
The most recent and largest case that has come to my attention is that of TransCanada’s attempt to invoke eminent domain in order to build an oil pipeline ranging 1,700 miles from Canada, into the US- South Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico. The company has been suing dozens of landowners, taking them to court in their various states. In an interesting twist, TransCanada as the name demonstrates, is a Canadian company, but all permits for the project have been filed through its American subsidiary, located in Omaha.
Can a foreign company even invoke eminent domain in the US?
NoLandGrab: Well, if eminent domain can be invoked for a Russian oligarch's basketball arena...
Posted by eric at November 7, 2011 10:27 AM