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Eminent Domain Benefits Developers, Not the Public


In general, I do not believe that eminent domain should be used for private economic development.

Related Articles:
- Eminent Domain Revisited
- Eminent Domain Benefits Developers, Not the Public
- Eminent Domain is a Tool, Not a Conspiracy

From The Community Gazette:

- Columbia Expansion and Eminent Domain
- The Battle Over the Iron Triangle
- Life in the Atlantic Yards Footprint

We do not ever hear that it is a public purpose to take the land of the wealthy to benefit low-income people. We never hear that eminent domain is used to take a Hyatt and build mixed income housing. The general stance is always take away land from poor people and give it to someone who is much better off.

There are alternatives to eminent domain. Private developers who want to build large projects can buy the existing tenants out. And if there are holdouts – as was the case with the one building, that refused to sell out for the Rockefeller Center development - it is possible to build around an existing location.

I also believe that when you take a huge swath of property and try to build it all at once we generally end up with a less interesting, less textured, and less vital environment that may not produce as much in terms of economic development as a more mixed plan.

In the case of Atlantic Yards plan with the Frank Gehry buildings and the arena, developers plan on taking over not just residences, but a lot of small businesses as well. There is a tendency of people who run economic development corporations to see anything that is not big business that is not a multi-national corporation, as unworthy. Small businesses are often the birthplaces of larger businesses that drive the economy. We must always look at who benefits and who loses in cases of eminent domain.

I would be less concerned about the use of eminent domain if I thought that it was really for a public purpose, rather than for the benefit of developers. We are in an era of public/private partnerships and what typically happens is a developer comes to the government and says, “We like that property. We think we could make good use of it. Why don’t you condemn it for us.” Then the government goes through with a charade of a public process and does it.

Also the argument that these decisions should be left up to elected officials or legislative bodies is problematic. When we voted for Michael Bloomberg in the last election, we didn’t get to vote on whether we should develop Willets Point or the West Side of Manhattan, we just had to choose between two candidates.

Unless you have input into the actual programs as opposed to saying we can kick these officials out – and think of how long it took before Robert Moses finally met his demise – there isn’t much that can be done.

Eminent domain can always be used for a high school or an actual public facility, but it should not be used for economic development that benefits a developer, corporation, or shopping mall operator. We use the public sector, and then rationalize it by saying the development will produce jobs and taxes.

Many of these projects also get tax abatements. So it is not even clear that they create much in taxes. And it is difficult to say whether new jobs are created as a direct result of physical development or whether it is just a movement of jobs from one place to another.

Susan Fainstein is a professor and acting director of the urban planning department at Columbia University. Her remarks were adapted from an address at a recent event at the New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and the New York Metro Chapter of the American Planning Association.

 

Eminent Domain is a Tool, Not a Conspiracy


There is nothing evil about eminent domain.

Related Articles:
- Eminent Domain Revisited
- Eminent Domain Benefits Developers, Not the Public
- Eminent Domain is a Tool, Not a Conspiracy

From The Community Gazette:

- Columbia Expansion and Eminent Domain
- The Battle Over the Iron Triangle
- Life in the Atlantic Yards Footprint

The notion that government is a bunch of aliens who came down from Mars and acquired these secretive massive powers may be true in Washington, but in my experience it has never been true at a local level, where governments make mistakes, but are incapable of taking on conspiracies against the little people.

Eminent domain is a tool. Whose hands that tool is in determines whether or not is used for what people may see as “good” or “bad.” The political process is defined by public participation or unfortunately, the lack thereof. Whether government makes the right decision or wrong decision is not a function of the tools that are wielded, but of the process.

When it comes to the issue of eminent domain, I think we are seeing a pendulum swing.

In New York City, we have a uniform land use procedure, known as ULURP, because there was the backlash against the unfettered powers wielded by Robert Moses in building roads, bridges, and other projects. The ULURP process was the people’s way of saying to their government, “Wait a minute, you cannot just make these decisions and slash through our communities.” As good and decent as roads may be, you have to ask people what they think. And there has to be a process where people get to say what they think. So our land use procedure was born.

My fear is that now that we have integrated a way for the voices of the local communities to be heard in the process – which is very good and desirable thing – that many of these voices have become advocates for community museums.

There is a notion that communities should never change - that they are sacrosanct the way they are. I think that is a troubling swing of the pendulum in the other direction. I think we should think about what that entails.

I agree that a lot of urban renewal projects of the past have been failures. But I do not think they have been failures because of eminent domain. They are failures because of bad planning.

Bad planning comes from the inability of government and the public to think and act coherently in relation to decisions about the future. Planning is about the future, and it is always at odds with the immediacy of political decision-making and land use changes that affect the people who are there right now. That is where government has to strike a balance. Everything can’t be a beauty contest. Everything can’t be decided on the popularity of a decision.

If that were the case, we would never build a homeless shelter or even a high school; we would only build elementary schools because no one wants teenagers near them.

We are seeing this in our garbage crisis. We can’t have a landfill. We can’t build marine transfer stations. And we can’t burn garbage. And we don’t recycle very well either. So I’m not sure where that takes us.

All of these things are about land use changes, and in New York, that is always a complex issue.

In many projects eminent domain is not being used to eliminate “blight” like urban renewal projects of the past, but to generate jobs and taxes into the future.

We don’t live in a country where the federal government supports all of these local uses, like schools and police. We have to come up with those dollars ourselves. I agree that there has to be constraint on eminent domain decisions, just as there has to be constraint on anything that government does. But we shouldn’t think that these projects are “bad” just because they are the work of private developers. We need to have these kinds of uses to generate jobs and taxes.

Jerilyn Perine is the president of Block by Block LLC. She served as Commissioner of New York City Department of Housing, Preservation, and Development under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Her remarks were adapted from an address at a recent event at the New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and the New York Metro Chapter of the American Planning Association.

 

Cleaning Up The PCBs In the Hudson River


For decades, a lot of electrical equipment contained chemicals known as PCBs -- polychlorinated biphenyls -- because they didn’t burn easily, and could act as insulation. But some 30 years ago, scientists learned that even a small amount of these chemicals could be harmful to people and other living things, such as waterways.

By that time, General Electric had been dumping PCBs into the Hudson River upstate for many years, turning 200 miles of the 315-mile-long body of water into a hazardous waste site.

"About 50 percent of PCBs in New York Harbor come from General Electric PCBs upstream," says Rich Schiafo of the environmental group Scenic Hudson.

GE stopped dumping the chemicals into the river way back in the 1970s, but for a long time, the company resisted getting rid of the PCBs that were already there, arguing that dredging them up would just make things worse.

The company also argued that it shouldn't bear the brunt of the very expensive cleanup when it didn't knowingly dump a dangerous substance into the water. However, the river falls under the federal Superfund law, which holds companies responsible for cleanups even when the discharges were legal.

After much legal wrangling, in October of this year, General Electric finally agreed with the federal Environmental Protection Agency on a clean-up plan.

Many environmentalists were not happy with the plan. Neither were some state officials; the State Attorney General’s Office found the plan inadequate, an assessment with which General Electric disagrees. But now, it turns out, at least one federal expert wasn’t happy with the plan either.

PCBs in the City

Even today, some 30 years after dumping of the chemicals ended, some 500 pounds of PCBs spill over the dam at Troy every year, contaminating wildlife and people who eat fish as far downstream as New York City.

The compound is a probable carcinogen and can damage neurological, immune and reproductive systems. PCBs have recently been linked to Parkinson's, type-2 diabetes, and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. The pollutant does not break down much over time, but it can easily spread through waterways.

Advisories warn pregnant women and children not to eat any fish out of the river. And river watchers caution everyone to avoid eating bottom feeders from the river. But warnings do not stop consumption of fish, says Robert Goldstein, senior attorney at the environmental group Riverkeeper, because some people have no other way of feeding their families.

There's an economic impact on New York City's infrastructure, too. It takes dredging to maintain the waterways, but it's costly and difficult to dispose of contaminated sediment. While New York waterways have been getting cleaner, the presence of the PCBs from the Hudson hampers the progress toward a healthy ecosystem.

A Criticized Plan

The first phase of the current plan begins in the spring of 2007, when General Electric has agreed to dredge 10 percent of the PCBs. But in a later phase, they may be able to avoid further dredging, instead capping a large area with a layer of fill. Some experts say the cap won't hold the PCBs down, that storms and even boat propellers in shallow areas will stir up the new layer, exposing and releasing PCBs into the river. More worrisome to activists is an opt-out section of the plan that could allow General Electric to do nothing at all after the first phase.

General Electric has argued in the past that dredging will actually stir up more PCBs, making the situation worse, a contention that environmentalists say has been disproven by studies of dredging projects in other states.

But now General Electric has ceased arguing and has agreed to the initial dredging, with promises to follow through with the second phase. In fact, a spokesman said, they will be undertaking the largest dredging project in the nation's history.

The Leaked Memo

A leaked confidential memo from an expert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the agreement General Electric reached with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice announced in October is inadequate -- the same conclusion voiced by environmental groups and the state attorney general's office. The memo was given to Robert Goldstein of Riverkeeper, who released it to the press. Goldstein believes that the only reason the Environmental Protection Agency would have for not releasing itself the document is that the report found the proposed cleanup wanting. "It's very suspicious," he says. "This is not some wacky wayward employee.”

The Environmental Protection Agency told the Westchester Journal-News there was no cover-up, but that the memo was "part of internal communications between consulting agencies." A spokesman also told the paper that capping would be used only after other efforts did not reduce the PCBs.

Still, critics are concerned. If the plan proceeds as now written, Goldstein proclaims, it will lead to "General Electric having the remedy which it initially proposed, which is leaving the river alone and letting it recover itself.”

 

 



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