PDA

View Full Version : Eminent Domain and Atlantic Yards



Conley
10-05-2011, 08:50 AM
This is a great article but it does relate to sports (you've been warned). The case itself is probably worthy of a good discussion though. These are the kinds of acts that make me distrust our government.

Ten years ago, a New York real estate developer named Bruce Ratner fell in love with a building site at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues in Brooklyn. It was 22 acres, big by New York standards, and within walking distance of four of the most charming, recently gentrified neighborhoods in Brooklyn — Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Clinton Hill, and Fort Greene. A third of the site was above a railway yard, where the commuter trains from Long Island empty into Brooklyn, and that corner also happened to be where the 2, 3, 4, 5, D, N, R, B, Q, A, and C subway lines all magically converge. From Atlantic Yards — as it came to be known — almost all of midtown and downtown Manhattan, not to mention a huge swath of Long Island, was no more than a 20-minute train ride away. Ratner had found one of the choicest pieces of undeveloped real estate in the Northeast.

But there was a problem. Only the portion of the site above the rail yard was vacant. The rest was occupied by an assortment of tenements, warehouses, and brownstones. To buy out each of those landlords and evict every one of their tenants would take years and millions of dollars, if it were possible at all. Ratner needed New York State to use its powers of "eminent domain" to condemn the existing buildings for him. But how could he do that? The most generous reading of what is possible under eminent domain came from the Supreme Court's ruling in the Kelo v. New London case. There the court held that it was permissible to seize private property in the name of economic development. But Kelo involved a chronically depressed city clearing out a few houses so that Pfizer could expand a research and development facility. Brooklyn wasn't New London. And Ratner wasn't Pfizer: All he wanted was to build luxury apartment buildings. In any case, the Court's opinion in Kelo was treacherous ground. Think about it: What the Court said was that the government can take your property from you and give it to someone else simply if it believes that someone else will make better use of it. The backlash to Kelo was such that many state legislatures passed laws making their condemnation procedures tougher, not easier. Ratner wanted no part of that controversy. He wanted an airtight condemnation, and for that it was far safer to rely on the traditional definition of eminent domain, which said that the state could only seize private property for a "public use." And what does that mean? The best definition is from a famous opinion written by former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor:

Our cases have generally identified three categories of takings that comply with the public use requirement. … Two are relatively straightforward and uncontroversial. First, the sovereign may transfer private property to public ownership — such as for a road, a hospital, or a military base. See, e.g., Old Dominion Land Co. v. United States, 269 U. S. 55 (1925); Rindge Co. v. County of Los Angeles, 262 U. S. 700 (1923). Second, the sovereign may transfer private property to private parties, often common carriers, who make the property available for the public's use — such as with a railroad, a public utility, or a stadium.

A stadium. The italics are mine — or rather, they are Ratner's. At a certain point, as he gazed longingly at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush, a light bulb went off inside his head. And he bought the New Jersey Nets.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7021031/the-nets-nba-economics

Conley
10-05-2011, 09:00 AM
Basically what this amounts to is a land grab by a giant real estate developer, who through political connections was able to purchase the property below market value and was able to condemned perfectlly fine buildings and evict ordinary people by using the state of New York. The developer was then able to flip the property for millions in profit.

Both liberals and conservatives have taken issue with this, and here's another nugget I found:

The project received crucial support from affordable-housing advocates, because at least 30% of the project's units would be reserved for tenants that are low-, moderate- or middle-income.[11] One of the more prominent members of this group has been ACORN, which signed the Affordable Housing Memorandum of Understanding with developer Forest City Ratner in 2005. In 2008, ACORN was revealed to have received a $1.5 million loan from the developer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Yards

As it stands now those units will not be for low income tenants (you got hosed ACORN :D) but it shows more of the corruption involved. All this rot needs some disinfectant.