>And here's something almost no one paid attention to. The land
>being taken is not be sold to private developers. "the development
>corporation will own the land located within the development area.
>The development corporation will enter into ground leases of various
>parcels to private developers; those leases will require the
>developer to comply with the terms of the development plan."
>
>So the land is being taken for public ownership, which should
>satisfy even "public use" fundamentalists, unless eminent domain is
>illegitimate even if any part of such land is leased to any private
>company.
How is fundamentally different from a thousand other schemes in which "public" planning authorities promote private development of land? I haven't looked at this in several years, but back in the 1980s and 1990s, NYC was blessed by the efforts of the Public Development Corporation, later the Economic Development Corporation, which, though nominally public, was largely controlled by real estate interests operating in secret. I was going to do a story on them for the Voice, but their stonewalling made it hopeless. Even though I had a well-placed city lawyer advising me on what to request, the PDC/EDC made it impossible for me to file freedom of information requests. "We have millions of documents here, you'll have to be more specific." If I had a staff of researchers, maybe. And what sort of "public interest" projects were they promoting? The South Street Seaport and the transformation of the old police HQ on Centre St into luxury condos. Here we have a public authority promoting private development as well - do we really know to what end?
Doug