Nine Property Owners and Tenants File Atlantic Yards Eminent Domain Challenge in New YorkStateCourt

Petitioners Seek to Prevent New York State's

Seizure of Their Homes and Businesses by Eminent Domain

BROOKLYN, NY -- Late Friday, August 1, 2008,  nine property owners and tenants—with homes and businesses New York State wants to seize for developer Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project—filed a petition with the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court seeking an order rejecting the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) findings and determination to seize their homes and businesses by eminent domain.

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The court argument will likely be in January 2009.

"New York Courts have a proud history of interpreting the New York Constitution as providing greater protections for individual rights than the federal constitution.  This case presents an opportunity to continue that tradition by declaring that the New York Constitution prohibits the government from seizing private homes simply to turn them over to a developer who covets them for a massive luxury condominium project," said lead attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP.  "We are confident that the court will see this for what it is:  government officials bending to the will of Bruce Ratner, allowing him to wield the power of eminent domain for his personal financial benefit."

Facing the seizure of their homes and businesses, the petitioners have alleged five claims against the ESDC— the condemning authority utilized by Forest City Ratner to take the petitioners' properties and give them to Forest City Ratner. The five claims are that the ESDC's determination to forcibly seize the properties should be rejected because:

1. It violates the public use clause contained in the Bill of Rights of the New YorkConstitution.
ESDC's claims of public benefit are a pretext to justify a private taking.

2. It violates the due process clause contained in the Bill of Rights of the New YorkConstitution.

The public process was a sham.  The outcome was predetermined in a back room deal between Ratner, Pataki and Bloomberg.

3. It violates the equal protection clause contained in the Bill of Rights of the New YorkConstitution.
By singling out the petitioners, for unequal, adverse, treatment, and selecting Ratner as the recipient of irrational largess, the ESDC violated the petitioners' right to equal protection under the law.

4. It violates the low-income and current resident requirements of the New YorkConstitution.
The New York State Constitution provides that no loan or subsidy shall be made to aid any project unless the project contains a plan for the remediation of blight and the "occupancy of any such project shall be restricted to persons of low income as defined by law and preference shall be given to persons who live or shall have lived in such area or areas."
The Atlantic Yards project is not "restricted to persons of low income" and no preference has been given to "persons who live or shall have lived in such area."

5. It violates the "public use, benefit or purpose" requirement contained in New York's Eminent Domain Procedure Law (EDPL).

ESDC's determination that petitioners' homes and businesses will serve a "public use, benefit or purpose" has no basis in fact or law.

The petition to the Court  for the case, Goldstein et al. v. Empire State Development Corporation, can be downloaded at: www.dddb.net/eminentdomain

Comments

AMICONE LEGACY

HIGHER TAXES

OUT OF CONTROL SPENDING

CORRUPTION

MILLIONS IN GIVE-AWAYS TO FRIENDS + FAMILIES AND WEALTHY DEVELOPERS

ALL TIME HIGH IN WASTE IN CITY HALL AND BOARD OF ED.

ONLY DEVELOPMENT WAS GIVEAWAYS AT TAXPAYERS EXPENSE.

ABUSE AND CORRUPTION IN THE I.D.A.'S

SO, WHAT ELSE DID YOU EXPECT FROM YONKERS?

"New York Courts have a proud history of interpreting the New York Constitution as providing greater protections for individual rights than the federal constitution."

Oh, really?

You mean like, say- the Second Amendment?

Legal puffery notwithstanding, this suit is going no place- and fast.

Any politician that agrees with Eminent Domain to make rich indiividuals and the greediest class of americans, wealthier by giving them or allowing them the right to take poorer folks homes or businesses should bw forced by law to resign.

STOP EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE TODAY.

I for one can find a better public use for Yonkers city hall and Amiclowns house!!......A New Sewage System!