Eminent domain approval in Brooklyn revives questions about Manhattanville

A recent New York State Court of Appeals ruling upholding the use of eminent domain for the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn has sparked renewed interest in two similar cases concerning Columbia’s planned Manhattanville campus.

But the plaintiffs who challenge the use of eminent domain in Manhattanville say their cases are different, and do not see the pro-eminent domain decision as indicative of their chances.

Tuck-It-Away Self-Storage owner Nick Sprayregen and gas station owners Gurnam Singh and Parminder Kaur filed lawsuits in January with the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, one level below the Court of Appeals. Both suits challenge the Empire State Development Corporation’s December 2008 approval of the state’s invocation of eminent domain for Manhattanville.

ESDC would seize private properties in the 17-acre expansion zone and transfer ownership to the University, which would pay the current owners market-rate value. Columbia controls over 90 percent of land in the area, and Sprayregen and the Singhs are the only landowners who refuse to sell. The University promises not to seek eminent domain for residential buildings, though individual residential units in primarily nonresidential buildings could be vulnerable in 2018.

It’s been six months since the cases were heard, and Sprayregen’s attorney, Norman Siegel, said, “Our sense was that perhaps the Appellate Division was waiting to see what the Court of Appeals did [with Atlantic Yards], but that’s near speculation.”

The court would not be alone in looking to the Nov. 25 Atlantic Yards decision for precedent. University officials have also seen it as a possible bellwether for the Manhattanville cases, but declined to comment specifically.

Sprayregen and Siegel say their suit challenges eminent domain on different grounds and will be considered independently of Atlantic Yards. “Although both cases dealt with eminent domain, there is very little overlap beyond that,” Sprayregen wrote in an e-mail.

University spokesperson Victoria Benitez declined to comment on the potential precedent of Atlantic Yards. Both Columbia and ESDC have policies against commenting on pending litigation. David Smith, attorney for the Singhs, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Sprayregen and Singh cases allege that ESDC’s designation of the area as “blighted”—a requirement for eminent domain that indicates lack of economic activity—was made “in bad faith.” It also argues that the state’s definition of blight is unconstitutionally vague, and that the expansion of a private university is not a “civic project,” as required for eminent domain. Sprayregen also alleges his due process rights were violated when ESDC denied certain Freedom of Information Law requests, and when the court closed the case record before these requests were fulfilled.

“We documented particular properties to show that within two years of when Columbia purchased the property, the property then became vacant,” Siegel said. “We argue that that whole methodology of using vacancy to show the neighborhood is run-down, blighted, under-utilized, was all manipulation of what that standard [blight] historically meant, and therefore there’s bad faith.”

At a May hearing, ESDC attorney John Casolaro countered, “There is no evidence of bad faith here. Bad faith means corruption.”

Sprayregen has a separate case pending in the Court of Appeals on the FOIL issue. Siegel argued, “Since we’re not going to get the documents until the appeal is over, it’s unfair to close the record, because there could be something in those documents that’s important to our case.”

The Appellate Division, First Judicial Department heard the cases on May 21. The ruling—expected last July—has yet to be released, but Sprayregen and Siegel say it should come soon. Whichever side loses can appeal to the Court of Appeals, and Sprayregen said they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case if they lose there.

He and Siegel are hinging their hopes on the volume of their supporting evidence.

“Most of the arguments made by the plaintiffs in that case [Atlantic Yards] were, in the eyes of the court, merely ‘allegations,’” Sprayregen wrote. “We submitted into the record over 10,000 documents that we collected through 13 different FOIL requests that, in our opinion, move our arguments from mere allegations to actual facts.”

Ultimately, Siegel said, “It’s incorrect and exceedingly simplistic to just say, ‘Well, since the Atlantic Yards case dealt with eminent domain and the Columbia case deals with eminent domain, therefore if the Atlantic Yards case didn’t prevail, Columbia is going to succeed.’”