Eminent domain revisited up close and personal

Subject: Greg David on Drugs
Date: 12/4/2005 6:17:57 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
From: kitchen@hellskitchen.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)


Eminent domain revisited up close and personal
Crains NY Business
By Greg David
Published on December 05, 2005

The once esoteric legal doctrine of eminent domain has put me in the middle of an unusual lobbying blitz. On one side are people who support important development projects like the Nets arena in Brooklyn or the expansion of Columbia University, both of which will need to involve eminent domain. On the other is my daughter, who has taken up the issue as part of her American government class and is sure eminent domain needs to be outlawed. More and more, I think my daughter is right.

The concept has been around since the founding. It allows government to take private property from unwilling owners, with court-set compensation, for such public purposes as roads, schools and parks. In recent decades, states and cities began to use the process for economic development projects. When property owners refused to sell to developers, the local government condemned the property and turned it over to the builders. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that such actions are constitutional when done for the public good.

In New York, Times Square is the classic case of successful use of eminent domain. Without it, the Crossroads of the World would most likely still be a seedy, rundown, porn store haven.

So what? my daughter asks. "When you are in the nursing home, and they want to bulldoze it so that someone can build a McDonald's, you will realize eminent domain is bad," she told me last week.

That may sound absurd, but White Plains recently considered invoking the power to help one developer seize a parcel from another for the sole purpose of adding a few floors to an apartment tower. The request was rejected, but it shows how the boundaries of eminent domain are always being pushed to maximize profits. Often, developers can achieve the political clout needed to influence the government for their own gain.

Such mobilizing of government support is certainly on display in Brooklyn, where most public officials have lined up behind Bruce Ratner's plan to boost the prestige of that borough by building an arena for an NBA team. He also intends to build thousands of residential units at the expense of some homeowners, who will be forced to move. Should government really choose Ratner over the homeowners?

A similar story is taking place in Harlem. Columbia University needs to expand and has decided the best place to go is north. Doing so will require a dozen well-established businesses to move, and some of them say they will have no choice but to close. Columbia says it just can't include them in its expansion.

Again, should the government really decide who's right?

What makes the issue so compelling in New York is that eminent domain is exercised here by undemocratic and politically motivated agencies like the Empire State Development Corp. The Brooklyn plan doesn't need the approval of a single legislative body. You can imagine what my daughter will say when she learns that twist.

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