Let There Be Blight: Blight Condemnations in New York After Goldstein and Kaur
2011; Fordham University School of Law; Volume: 38; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0199-4646
Autores Tópico(s)Property Rights and Legal Doctrine
ResumoIntroduction I. Background to the Two Cases A. The Background to Goldstein B. The Background to Kaur II. A Blight Unto the World: Upholding Unconstrained Blight Condemnations A. A Virtually Limitless Definition of Blight B. Endorsing Highly Biased Blight Determination Studies C. Blight Designations Based on the Blight Created by the Very Parties that Stood to Gain from Condemnation D. Implications III. Eviscerating Pretextual Takings Standards A. The Magnitude of Expected Public Benefits B. Pretextual Motive C. The Extent of the Pre-Condemnation Planning Process D. The Presence of a Known Private Beneficiary of the Taking E. Implications Conclusion INTRODUCTION The New York Court of Appeals' two recent condemnation decisions are the most widely publicized and controversial property rights rulings since the Supreme Court decided Kelo v. City of New London. (1) In Kaur v. New York State Urban Development Corp., (2) and Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corp., (3) the Court of Appeals set new lows in allowing extremely dubious blight condemnations. The court ruled that such condemnations are permissible under the state constitution's Public Use Clause, which permits private property to be condemned only for a public use. (4) It also adopted an extremely narrow approach to interpreting what qualifies as an unconstitutional taking. (5) This Article analyzes these aspects of Kaur and Goldstein, and argues that the New York Court of Appeals erred badly, by allowing highly abusive condemnations and defining pretextual takings so narrowly as to essentially read the concept out of existence. Part I briefly describes the background of the two cases. Goldstein arose as a result of an effort by influential developer Bruce Ratner to acquire land in Brooklyn for his Atlantic Yards development project, which includes a stadium for the New Jersey Nets basketball franchise and mostly market rate and high-income housing that he plans to build. (6) Kaur resulted from Columbia University's attempts to expand into the Manhattanville neighborhood of West Harlem. (7) When some of the landowners refused to sell, Rather and the University successfully lobbied the government to declare the land they sought to be blighted and use eminent domain to transfer it to them. (8) Part II addresses the issue of condemnation. Goldstein and Kaur both applied an extraordinarily broad definition of blight that included any area where is economic underdevelopment or stagnation. (9) Almost any property can be described as underdeveloped relative to some other potential use of the land. In addition, the court ruled that even if the property somehow falls outside this definition, state judges can only strike down a condemnation if there is no room for difference of opinion as to whether an area is blighted. (10) But with just about any area, is at least some room for reasonable difference of opinion on the question of whether it is stagnant or underdeveloped. In adopting an extremely broad definition of blight, the Court of Appeals was roughly in line with many other states that define expansively. (11) Even so, this definition is at odds with the text of the New York Constitution, which allows condemnations only in substandard and insanitary areas [sic]. (12) Moreover, the court broke dubious new ground in three other crucial respects. First, it chose to uphold the condemnations despite evidence suggesting that the studies the government relied on to prove the presence of blight were deliberately rigged to produce a predetermined result. (13) Second, it dismissed as unimportant the fact that the firm which conducted the studies had a serious conflict of interest in that it had previously been on the payroll of Ratner and Columbia--the private parties that stood to benefit from the condemnations. …
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