TalB

This thread will be to discuss the cities around the world that are having projects that are abused by emminent domain. For those who don't know what the term means, it is defined as taking one's property, mainly private, by the government for a public use such as schools, parks, hospitals, police stations, firehouses, courthouses, highways, streets, housing projects, or any other government buildings. However, there have been projects that are privately owned, and the developers are using emminent domain to have their projects built when this in not what it's allowed for. Ever since the ruling of Kelo vs New London, it has put major challenges to the issue when it ruled that private developers can use emminent domain if the place they claim is blighted, though state governments have been passing laws either limiting or restricting it. The most common use of emminent domain abuse is mostly building new sports facilities for professional sports teams in that they are explioting the fans and threatening to move to another city if the sports owners don't get their way. Feel free to post what you know about emminet domain abuse as well as include news articles about it.

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Protest pans Willets Point plan
Protest pans Willets Point plan

BY JOHN LAUINGER and OWEN MORITZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Wednesday, August 13th 2008, 11:59 PM

With hoots and hollers, a group fighting a Bloomberg administration plan to redevelop Willets Point in Queens tried to disrupt a pro-plan rally in Manhattan Wednesday.

"Justice for Willets Point," chanted about 20 protesters, who were led by Councilman Hiram Monserrate (D-Queens). "Willets Point is not for sale."

"Shame on you! Shame on you!" countered former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman, who backs the proposal.

The clash in Washington Square Park came as members of the city Planning Commission met in a nearby NYU auditorium to consider City Hall's sweeping proposal, which would dislocate the 260 businesses that make up the roughly 60 acre industrial zone near Shea Stadium.

Shulman heads a local development corporation that is backing the city's proposal for an upscale development that includes 5,500 units of housing, retail stores, a hotel and a convention center.

Monserrate's group is demanding the city drop its strategy of using eminent domain to acquire the land.

"Drowning us out is not going to change much," Shulman declared. The protest, she said, "was rude and unnecessary."

Monserrate said his group was merely practicing democracy. "It's not undemocratic when you have opposing views," he said. "That's very American."

But Shulman said the councilman is saying one thing in public and another in private.

"I can't tell you how many times he has told me, 'Don't worry Claire,'" she said. "'At the end of the day, the project will proceed.'"

"I am not trying to stop the project. I'm trying to make sure that the project is fair," Monserrate said.

He said he wants the city to negotiate with the community on relocating the businesses.

After the disruption, Monserrate's group moved to one side of the park, still loudly protesting, while Shulman attempted to resume her press conference.

Thirty-two of the City Council's 51 members have signed a letter written by Monserrate declaring their "absolute opposition" to Bloomberg's plan, asking that the city take "eminent domain off the table."

The Planning Commission has until the end of next month to sign off on a Willets Point plan, which then goes to the City Council for approval.

Monserrate and other Council members will unveil legislation Thursday that would restrict and review the use of eminent domain.

"The legislation will call on the city and the state to address the growing use of the power of condemnation to create private wealth, rather than public benefit," Monserrate said.

omoritz@nydailynews.com

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The Brooklyn Paper: Yards ‘domain’ case has some eminence
Yards ‘domain’ case has some eminence

By Mike McLaughlin
The Brooklyn Paper

Legal experts agree on one thing about the latest lawsuit to block the Atlantic Yards project — the plaintiffs have put together a crafty argument to combat the project.

Law professors are intrigued by the argument, filed on Aug. 1 in state court by soon-to-be-displaced residents, that the state’s use of its eminent domain power to clear land for Bruce Ratner’s mega-project violates a little-known and never-tested provision of the state Constitution that prohibits public subsidies from underwriting any urban renewal project whose occupancy is not restricted “to persons of low income.”

Ratner’s development is slated to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in direct public subsidies and tax breaks despite the fact that it includes thousands of units of market-rate housing.

The plaintiffs claim that the luxury housing would violate Article 18, Section 6 of the state Constitution.

“It’s a very good, well-written complaint. They’ve got a hook,” said James Gardner, a law professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

The latest suit to halt the $4-billion, 16-skyscraper project comes after three federal courts — including the highest court in the land — declined to rule on the plaintiff’s principal argument, namely that state officials agreed to condemn land for Ratner in a “sham” process that touted the project’s supposed public benefits as a “pretext.”

The suit also alleges Atlantic Yards breaks several provisions of the state Bill of Rights and the state’s eminent domain code, but these arguments are likely to be determined by precedent, unlike the untested low-income residency requirement.

“That’s the only interesting hook that they have. Everything else in there has been already decided in other courts,” said Patricia Salkin, an associate dean at Albany Law School. And those decisions, most notably the landmark Supreme Court Kelo ruling, have given the government broad powers to use eminent domain for “public use.”

The case may blaze new ground by invoking an arcane section of the Constitution, but scholars and lawyers would be shocked if the New York State Supreme Court upheld the plaintiffs’ low-income housing argument rather than deferring to previous rulings in similar lawsuits.

“Public funds have frequently been used for various forms of urban renewal that were not so restricted,” said Christopher Serkin, an associate law professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Yards opponents have another glimmer of hope, experts said, namely that the state court is presiding during an ongoing backlash against the 2005 Kelo verdict.

“The New York court is one of the most activist in the country,” Gardner told The Brooklyn Paper.

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/re...ref=realestate
At Harlem’s Heart, an Enigmatic Neighborhood

By DEBORAH BALDWIN
Published: August 15, 2008


From 122nd to 136th Streets, from the Hudson River to St. Nicholas and Manhattan Avenues is the area known as Manhattanville. Although it was incorporated as a village in 1806, these days there is debate over whether it exists as a neighborhood as separate from greater Harlem.

Photo: Irwin Arieff


The neighborhood is better known for its warehouses and factories than its residential buildings -- although it has a good deal of public housing. It will soon see changes associated with a planned expansion of Columbia University.

Photo: Chester Higgins, Jr./The New York Times


The Hudson River Cafe is nestled near the Riverside Drive Viaduct at 133rd Street.

Photo: Andrew Henderson/The New York Times


On the Jacob H. Schiff parkland, you will find Public School 192 and this adjoining playground, renovated in 2004. The land was once home to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, and later to army barracks.

Photo: Andrew Henderson/The New York Times


El Floridita, a Cuban diner at Broadway and 129th, is popular with breakfast crowds.

Photo: Andrew Henderson/The New York Times


The Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is one of many restaurants and watering holes on a restaurant row along 12th Avenue.

Photo: Andrew Henderson/The New York Times


The famed Cotton Club, most recently re-opened in 1978, can be found on 125th Street in Manhattanville.

Photo: Andrew Henderson/The New York Times


Tucked under the viaduct at 131st Street is Fairway, which draws many a New Yorker to Manhattanville.

Photo: Andrew Henderson/The New York Times


Erected in the early 1900s, the Riverside Drive Viaduct is the visual hallmark of the neighborhood.

Photo: Andrew Henderson/The New York Times

STEP off the elevated subway at the center of Manhattanville and you may wonder if there’s really a there there. The view from the station above 125th Street and Broadway can be disorienting: no little shops and bodegas to say, “This is it.” What you see instead are warehouses, bus depots and factories, as well as unmarked towers and a crosshatch of diagonal streets more reminiscent of the West Village. Yet there’s something slightly magical about the way hills rise up around the area. A recent group exhibition of photographs dedicated to Manhattanville characterized its haunting mix of low-lying back streets, vaulted overpasses, vintage churches and riverfront as “strange, unresolved or unsettling.”

No wonder few people agree on its future — or even, for that matter, whether it exists in the first place. “I’ve considered the whole area Harlem,” said Sarah Martin, who has lived in the Grant Houses complex in Manhattanville since 1957, voicing the dismissive sentiment of some longtime residents.

Others say you hear the name these days mainly because it’s attached to the controversial plan by Columbia University to transform 17 acres of Manhattanville into an extended campus.

But there is a there there, insists Eric K. Washington, the author of “Manhattanville: Old Heart of West Harlem.”

“It’s not a neighborhood that you walk through and all of a sudden you’ve stepped into a Jane Austen novel,” Mr. Washington said. “But it does have a quality of intrigue. It seems to whisper to you, ‘Boy, have I got stories.’ ”

He described how it was incorporated as a village in 1806, straddling two thoroughfares now known as Broadway and 125th, its streets laid out old-style, pregrid. Some east-west streets still hold onto names like Tiemann Place — “a real cabbie-stumper,” said Mr. Washington, who lived on it for 20 years.

The 2000 census counted roughly 39,000 residents, 51 percent Hispanic or Latino (of any race), 32 percent non-Hispanic black and 10 percent white.

Many more people simply pass through, to shop at the sprawling Fairway supermarket on West 131st, line up with the crowds at Dinosaur-Bar-B-Que on 12th Avenue, and rubberneck at the film crews that set up under the arches of the Riverside Drive overpass.

With more warehouses than town houses, it’s an area that real estate agents like to redraw as part of higher-profile neighborhoods, as if tugging on the corners of a Google map. Though upscale condominiums occasionally come onto the market, the pickings are slim, according to Sidney Whelan, a sales associate at Halstead Property.

You can hardly blame people for trying to live there, though. West Harlem Piers Park opened this summer near Fairway; there’s a bike path along the river and a strip of hot new watering holes just up 12th Avenue; and the Henry Hudson Parkway is right there, offering a quick route upstate. And where else would a doll factory face an auto-body shop, or a renovated commercial space called the Mink Building — rich people’s furs used to summer there — sit opposite a live poultry shop?

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

For an area so small — 122nd to 136th Streets, from the Hudson River to St. Nicholas and Manhattan Avenues — Manhattanville covers a lot of psychogeographical ground. West 125th, home to the Cotton Club, feels like Harlem, while the southwest corner is oriented toward Riverside Park, where “you can stand at the top of the hill and see the George Washington Bridge,” said Linda Mahoney, who lives on Tiemann Place.

Farther north, on Broadway, you pick up a Dominican flavor. “It’s always been polyglot, unlike Harlem,” Mr. Washington said. “It forces you to rethink where you’re visiting — it’s a bit more complex.”

Today’s multiethnic mosaic includes Latinos who don’t speak Spanish and Middle Easterners who do, said Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, a member of the local community board who has lived on West 136th since 1964. Holding it together, he says, is not only tolerance but also the residual glue that brought the community together in the 1990s to fight a common enemy: the drug lords who ruled northern Manhattanville’s streets.

By 2005, the dealers retreated indoors, he said. He credits not only a police crackdown but also newcomers determined to make the area their home. One of them was Judith Matloff, who lives a few blocks north of Manhattanville and has written a pungent memoir, “Home Girl,” about her family’s 2000 purchase of a dilapidated house on a block then ruled by Dominican dealers.

Ms. Matloff paused during a recent walk around the area to stare at movers unloading a mattress — a once-popular way to transfer cocaine, she noted. Then she rallied, heading toward Broadway and its signs of a gradual upswing. “Ray’s Wines and Liquors is having wine tastings,” she said wryly. “Gallo tastings — behind bulletproof glass.”

Critics of Columbia’s plans say these signs of revitalization seem natural and organic, in contrast to the university’s buy-and-hold approach. “Even before a shovel has been dropped in the ground, the expansion has caused disruption and a sense of impending loss,” said Tom DeMott of the Coalition to Preserve Community.

Robert Kasdin, Columbia’s senior executive vice president, argued that rather than disrupt the area, redevelopment would improve its infrastructure. He said the university had taken steps to help preserve and develop housing.

There isn’t a vast stock right now; apart from plentiful student and public housing, inventory is negligible. But for those who qualify, the public housing comes in the form of “H.D.F.C. co-ops,” referring to the Housing Development Fund Corporation — some in stately prewar buildings. Created after the landlord flight of the 1970s, when tenants bought their buildings from the city, these co-ops have buyer income restrictions and caps on sale prices.

Christa Myers, who lives in an H.D.F.C. building near Convent Avenue and 129th Street and is buying a two-bedroom apartment there, said she was drawn to the building because it was on a quiet block in “a neighborhood that is getting nicer and nicer.”

“I will say, having been raised in Harlem and seeing gentrification, I have mixed feelings,” Ms. Myers said. “I’m an alumna of Columbia, and I love my alma mater,” but the growth will take place “at the expense of some people.”

WHAT YOU’LL PAY

A condo in a former warehouse on St. Nicholas Avenue near West 123rd recently sold for more than $1 million. Such properties are relatively rare.

The going price for co-ops is about $700 a square foot, said Patty LaRocco, a Prudential Douglas Elliman senior vice president.

Bellmarc Realty is offering a 1,000-square-foot two-bedroom at 501 West 122nd at $750,000, and Willie Kathryn Suggs, the well-known Harlem broker, valued an apartment she will be listing on Riverside Drive, overlooking the Hudson, at $800 a square foot.

For those who qualify and do not mind purchase and sales curbs, H.D.F.C. co-ops often go for less than $100,000. (See nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/developers/til.shtml.)

Renters should expect to pay up to $2,500 a month for a two-bedroom two-bath apartment, and $1,900 to $2,100 for a one-bedroom, Mr. Whelan said.

THE SCHOOLS

At the Mott Hall School, serving Grades 4 through 8, 93.9 percent of eighth graders showed proficiency in English and 98 percent in math, versus 43 percent and 60 percent citywide. At Kipp Infinity Charter School, serving Grades 5 through 7, 98.5 percent of the seventh graders showed proficiency in English, and 100 percent in math. At the Kipp Star College Prep School, serving Grades 5 through 8, 54 percent of the eighth graders showed proficiency in English, 95.3 percent in math.

The High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College, which admits by test only, reported 2007 SAT averages of 576 in reading, 627 in math and 551 in writing, versus 441, 462 and 433 citywide.

WHAT TO DO

West Harlem Piers Park extends from West 125th to 132nd Street.

Fairway opened on West 131st Street in 1995. When asked why there, the owner, Howard Glickberg, said, “There aren’t many places in Manhattan where you can have 40,000 square feet of selling area and a parking lot also.” How true. Don’t miss the meat section, which fills an entire refrigerated room.

Just north on 12th Avenue are the Hudson River Cafe at West 133rd Street and a restaurant row at West 135th.

THE COMMUTE

Midtown is a quick subway ride from the 1, 2 and 3 stop at 125th and Broadway. Switch to the express at 96th; you’ll get there in 15 minutes.

THE HISTORY

In the early 1800s, Manhattanville was a port village with a crooked main drag called Bloomingdale Road. In the early 1900s, Riverside Drive Viaduct went up, along with a subway line held aloft by Eiffel Tower-like arches, and the village became part of the city. The New York Times bemoaned the changes. “Quaint Landmarks in Manhattanville Passing Away for Modern Improvements,” read a headline in 1912.

__________________
I have respected your views, so I expect you to do the same for me.

TalB

Here is a list of debunked myths for those who believe that the Atlantic Yds complex is the best thing for Brooklyn, and please try to refute my claims with facts and do not sound like you are echoing FCR, Marty Markowitz, Mike Bloomberg, or anyone else supporting it.

By everyone do they really mean the politicians or the people? I have a feeling that this is really to the former. Since Bruce Ratner, who is the head of FCR, only needs their approoval to get his project, the public means nothing. As a matter of fact, when it was brought to the public, many of them had numerous questions about the plan in that it could possibly cause rolling blackouts in that there is barley the power lines for it, create problems with the pipes in sewage, and lead to a lot of traffic. The intersection of Atlantic/Flatbush Aves are already packed right now, and this is w/o the project being there, and this plan will make it worse than it already is. There were numerous questions on it casting shadows on those using green energy that will have to go back to using actual electricity b/c they won't have the sun. Many of those individuals who support the project are actually paid by Ratner such as ACORN, who would normally oppose it if not for such an offer. When the opposition stated their case at the hearings, they were constantly disruppted by the supporters and were attacked by them in response when they spoked. If it is so supported, then why do many supporters tend to sound so defensive or repeat what Ratner or Markowitz already said?

As usual, supporters make some b/w statement to make us opponents look bad, but it's really making them look bad instead. By saying that opponents don't want developement on the railyards just for opposing Ratner's plan is really a steretype. Nobody said that the Atlantic (Vanderbuilt) Yds should remain undeveloped, and this was from the opposition. At first they wanted to put a park there, and later on they made an agreement with Garry Barnett, of Extell Developement, to create a more sensible plan that would give actually more of the promises that Ratner claims to make. Who said anyone was against affordable housing by not wanting this project? The truth is that the promise of affodable housing is actually pretty low, especially with the 80-20 plan, but that has shrinked to almost 95-5 or even 99-1 by Ratner's own numbers. BTW, the affordable housing is actually optional and Ratner can opt-out of it by using the market as an excuse for not having it in the end. When a pie chart was relased, which were based on his own statistics, it was found that the highest income will make 2/3 of this project, while the lowest two won't even be part of it. Who is this really going to be affordable to, especially when the two lowest incomes aren't going to be living there? The promise of jobs have been very skeptical, b/c it has been said that union rules will allow for those who are working at Nets games right now to have first dibs on those jobs in a relocation, which won't help the community, and if they all get them, then that promise will be broken. Most of the other jobs won't be permanent or even help with unions. Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn borough president, made the claim that local high schools will get to play there when in fact they won't b/c Ratner want's to have events that really bring in the money, and a road trip for the Nets will not allow for them to be there either. In reality, Ratner is trying to pull a fast one to get it through.

While the claim for those taking public transportation due to location looks good in theory, it's not the same in practice. If this is the case, then why do so many drive to Yankee Stadium for a NY Yankees game despite having the B, D, and 4 trains of the subway going there, and pack the Major Deegan Expwy (I-87) instead? Shea Stadium, home of the NY Mets, has the 7 train of the subway and a stop on the Pt Washington Branch of the LIRR yet many still drive there either from the Van Wyck Expwy (I-678), LIE (I-495), and GCP making Roosevelt Ave traffic prone. Even at MSG, which has the NY Knicks, NY Liberty, and NY Rangers, there is good proportion of those who take cabs over using the A, C, E, 1, 2, and 3 trains of the subway along with just about every line of the LIRR, and the midtown route of NJ Transit. The same can go for Aqueduct Racetrack despite having the A train, Richmond County Ballpark Stadium (Staten Island Yankees) with a special stop on the SIR, and Keyspan Pk (Brooklyn Cyclones) with the D, F, N, and Q trains. Wait a second here? Don't these places have stops off of mass transit? If this is the case, then why are so many driving instead despite the fact that they can save time from traffic, money for parking, and gas for driving? Another problem is those who live off of sporadic commuter rail lines such as Metro-North RR, LIRR, NJ Transit, SIR, and PATH that are known to hardly have service after a time at night or not run for that point, making the riders feel better if they were driving.

Whatever he does for the people, he does it for PR purposes only. In reality, a developer such as himself couldn't care less about the people, except use them to push his projects and ditch them afterwards. He did this when he wanted to build MTC over in downtown Brooklyn and promised those who help him that they would get to work there as a reward when he lied about it and just allowed for JP Morgan Chase to just relocate its workers from Manhattan. That complex did very little if anything to help downtown Brooklyn, and he even lied about having a retail base there. MTC felt more like some office park that didn't even allow for pedestrian traffic to cut through it where they could through the WTC. Many longtime businesses, such as Gage & Tollners, had to close its doors due to the increase in property taxes that it caused. I liked it when a person from the South Oxford Block Association mentioned this, "Bruce Ratner is not a saviour, he is a developer." He did similar things when he built the Atlantic Ctr Mall as Ft Green residents refer to it as turnning his back on them for there being no entrance on Hanson Pl. Also, many of the businesses there weren't even local businesses but corporations and chains instead, and the same when he raped the Atlantic Terminal for air rights. A group known as BUILD was clearly created by him and is funded by his company to show that these people care when they really don't. There is a good chance that Ratner made them sign a waiver that he cannot be held liable if he brakes his promise through the CBA, which didn't allow for the opposition to be part of. The truth is unless if you are one if CEOs or business associates, he doesn't owe anything he held back on. The promise of jobs is more of a bait and switch movement that developers have a history of doing to make allies. He even portrays this project by showing black families, who in the likelihood won't afford to live there, in front of brownstones when in fact it will look nothing like that. BTW, those the three year contracts start from the moment they are signed, not when the place is completed, which wouldn't even help them when it was found to take more than that to build them, and he will use the claim that their contracts expired and he can't do anything about it. Some of his supporters justify the abuse of emminent domain otherwise they deny it altogether. As for Brooklyn neighborhoods getting better, this was long before Ratner or some developers came b/c this is all the way back in 1980's, and developers only came in after that. Why should those who moved in a few years ago be force to move out? In reality, Ratner doesn't care about Brooklyn or the Nets, just how much money he can make of off it.

There were numerous alternative sites offered to Ratner to build it where it wouldn't cause an abuse of emminent domain. The first choice was the Navy Yds that was open to developement so he wouldn't have use any emminet domain, but he balked on it. Another choice was on the Coney Island Railyards, b/c it was big enough to buil the entire complex, so no emminent domain would be needed. Lettitia James, the coucilwoman for the planned site made the claim that Ratner should buil the arena over his mall since it was doing bad anyway and could have a garage there, but claimed it was allow for a vehicle bomb as if widening Atlantic Ave wouldn't mean the same. Another offer was in Red Hook, but it failed b/c there was no subways nearby. Charles Barron, who is the councilman for East NY offered a lot for the arena and complex in that was near some subway lines and the LIRR so no emminent domain would be needed, but Ratner balked on it. Politicians in NJ claimed that leaving the Nets where they are now would be good b/c NJ Transit is building a line there in the next couple of years along with the Xanadu Complex. Other NJ politicians have offered that moving them to Newark along with the NJ Devils at the Prudential Ctr would actually work for transit usage for being near Newark Penn Station, which has NJ Transit, PATH, and the Newark City Subway. However, Ratner didn't want to even consider other places, b/c he was going for he wants it or gets nothing.

Actually, 65% of the fan base for the Nets is in NJ, and moving them to Brooklyn will cause that loss. As for attendance figures, they actually went up in the last number of seasons, and I am talking about right now. I will not argue that the location isn't the best, b/c the only way to get to the Meadowlands is by car or buses from the PANYNJ. If transit was placed there, it would offer an alternative to getting there. As for Brooklyn, it is full of loyal Knicks fans who have mentioned that they won't convert just b/c the Nets end up being there. Even worse, why should the fans have to pay for it when he should?

Many try to use their tenure of living in Brooklyn as their claim that they know about it better. I will not agrue on them being there for the ups and downs, but this doesn't mean that they are right 100% on it. If they have truly lived in Brooklyn and claimed when it got better, then they should known that it wasn't by Ratner or other developers, it was the residents themselves. Just b/c I don't live in Brooklyn doesn't mean that I don't have a say just like those who only moved recently. It is not just the city that is paying, which is all five boroughs, it is the entire state of NY that will paying the bill for Ratner on this. In other words, a person living in the state of NY that happens to be near the Canadien border will have to pay for this, and they will complain that they live nowhere near this in why they shouldn't pay for it. Since I live in the state of NY and it will involve my tax dollars, it is my business, b/c I will also have to provide the money for Ratner, and it won't matter if you live in Buffalo or The Bronx.

Actually, there was opposition against it for that building being out of scale with the area. However, it was not as big as for the Atlantic Yds complex, which will have Miss Brooklyn as the flagship. The reason is that the owner of that bank did not abuse emminent domain to build it over the rows that he planned for it, and bought them out fairly in a deal that would give them just compesenation. If one actually looks at Brooklyn durring the 1920's, times were different then such as the population being way less as well as the lower half barely being developed until after the postwar era. There were a lot of other things that were done in that decade that included speakeasies for defying prohibition, underground gambling dens, no zonning laws or LPC, and the secret use of marijuana (declared ilegall since 1919). I am not saying that just b/c they did something then, means that it was justified as that's the case today.

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