Real Estate & Property Law

Columbia Takes Manhattan(ville) Update

By Robert Thomas (inversecondemnation.com)

Columbia University in the City of New York (as it calls itself -- is there another?), one of my alma maters, has gone into the eminent domain business (as noted in this post), and is acting on its plans to expand northward into the Manhattanville Neighborhood, aka West Harlem.

This controversy has been brewing for some time, and apparently has now resulted in court action. In "Columbia Expansion Holdout Sues To Block Eminent Domain," the New York Observer quotes from the 107-page petition filed by the owner of a self-storage business, which seeks to set aside the findings made by the Empire State Development Corporation:

This case is about the abuse of the government?s power of eminent domain to secure for a developer a contested area of West Harlem it had long sought to control and for which it had formed a fully blown plan. This case is about the secret collaboration between ESDC and New York City agencies in a complex plan to give that developer, an elite private university, everything it wanted, without compromise or limitation, while evading public review and accountability. This case is about favoritism shown to an elite private university over community interests, clearly and consistently expressed through the local Community Planning Board ? And this case is about how ESDC, in its determination to maximize Columbia?s private benefit, overreached its statutory authorization, made findings in bad faith, and fabricated pretextual purposes to cover up the illegality of its dominant purpose.

According to this story from the Columbia Spectator, another landowner also challenged the takings. The suits are substantially similar, and dispute findings that the area is a blighted neighborhood. 

In news that is either related -- or one of those ironic coincidences that count as synchonicity -- Susette Kelo and the author of a new book about the eminent domain case that she took "all the way to the Supreme Court" will be appearing at Columbia Law School on January 28, 2009.  The book is Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage, by Jeff Benedict (available from Amazon here). More information about the event here. [If any of this blog's readers are able to attend, please send a summary.]

Full post as published by inversecondemnation on January 27, 2009 (boomark / email).