Real Estate & Property Law

Columbia University Challenge

By Alan Ackerman

 Observer

The owner of a set of storage buildings in West Harlem, Nick Sprayregen, has filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s use of eminent domain, he said this afternoon. The state has commenced actions to acquire the properties in connection with Columbia University’s planned 17-acre expansion in the area.

In Mr. Sprayregen’s 107-page petition, he challenged the state’s actions as unconstitutional, alleging the development is not intended for civic use. The petition claims that the area is not blighted, as required by law; that the studies demonstrating blight were highly flawed; and that the public approval process was rigged.

Among other claims, Mr. Sprayregen, the owner of Tuck-it-Away Storage, said that the city and state collaborated secretly more than five years ago to determine a strategy for the project, and quotes email excerpts that suggest some skepticism on the part of a city official about the process.

“Where a development agency colluded with a developer to drive out businesses,” the petition says, “vacate buildings, and then run them down, and then hired the developer’s own consultant to give the agency the basis for a blight finding, this case raises the questions of the proper limit of judicial deference to agency determinations.”

Colleges and universities have consistently and historically been treated as "public" for 'public use' purposes. What has occurred in many jurisdictions is the specific constitutional delegation for State University eminent domain actions. Frequently, there have been specific statutory delegations pursuant to a constitutional delegation empowering condemnation upon legislative grant. The Columbia University challenge will likely be peremptorily dismissed. 

Full post as published by National Eminent Domain Blog on January 27, 2009 (boomark / email).