After ruling, M'ville future questioned

Questions abound on the surprising court ruling that decided state seizure of private property for use as part of Columbia’s Manhattanville campus expansion is illegal.

On Thursday, the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division halted the invocation of eminent domain, the process by which the state can take over private property for a “public good” in exchange for market-rate compensation. The Empire State Development Corporation, which authorized eminent domain for Manhattanville in December 2008, will appeal to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. The University is not a party in the case, and it remains to be seen what steps it will take in response and how the expansion will be impacted.

At a University Senate meeting Friday, University President Lee Bollinger said he was “optimistic” eminent domain would be re-authorized in the appeal, but declined to comment on what will happen if it isn’t. “This is a stage in a process that will continue to unfold,” he said.

One aspect of the ruling remains especially unclear: the fate of the sprawling underground facility proposed as part of the expansion to allow for below-grade deliveries, basement space, and other uses. The bulk of this area, which extends below essentially the entire expansion zone and would reach seven stories underground, is currently owned by the city. The University’s December 2008 General Project Plan for the expansion was approved by the city, which is willing to give the property to Columbia. But legally, the plan states that the University must obtain it through eminent domain.

According to the GPP, the “Underground Streets Area” would be acquired through eminent domain in three stages as needed “for the construction and development of the Below-Grade Facility.”

If the ruling is upheld by the New York State Court of Appeals, this space could also become unobtainable, along with the properties owned by the plaintiffs in Thursday’s two lawsuits—Tuck-It-Away Self-Storage owner Nick Sprayregen and gas station owners Gurnam Singh and Parminder Kaur.

University officials have maintained throughout the expansion planning process that the Manhattanville campus is an all-or-nothing affair, and that they cannot execute the development plan approved by the state in May without controlling all land in the expansion zone, including the privately owned properties. Columbia already controls over 90 percent of the 17-acre site, which spans from 125th to 133rd streets and Broadway to 12th Avenue.

Columbia Executive Vice President Robert Kasdin declined to comment when reached Sunday on whether the University could obtain the below-grade property without eminent domain. Asked if the expansion would proceed if eminent domain were blocked and all properties couldn’t be obtained, Kasdin said, “I’m not going to speculate on what would happen after the next court decision.”

In the early stages of planning for the expansion in 2004, University President Lee Bollinger said, “If we cannot really have the opportunity to develop the entire site, then we won’t do it at all. It’s really that important.”

Thursday’s ruling held that the ESDC’s approval of eminent domain use in Manhattanville was illegal because the expansion of “a private elite education institution” does not constitute “public use” as required for the state to seize private property. In addition, the decision found that the ESDC’s determination that the area was blighted—a condition of economic disrepair beyond potential for natural relief, also a requirement for eminent domain—was made “in bad faith.”

The 3-2 decision, written by Justice James Catterson, was harshly worded, describing the ESDC’s actions with terms like “sophistry” and “idiocy” and stating, “The process employed by ESDC predetermined the unconstitutional outcome, was bereft of facts which established that the neighborhood in question was blighted, and ultimately precluded the petitioners from presenting a full record before either the ESDC or, ultimately, this Court. In short, it is a skein worth unraveling.”

“If the decision’s upheld, they [Columbia] will not be able to use eminent domain on 9 percent of the land, or six of the 67 buildings that are there currently,” said Norman Siegel, Sprayregen’s attorney and former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. He added, “There are two possibilities: one, that Columbia then builds on 91 percent of the land, or two, they finally sit down with the Sprayregens and Singhs in a good-faith effort and try to negotiate with them—and I don’t know whether that’s possible at this stage, because Nick has said to me over and over that it’s not just about money, it’s about individual rights.”

In an interview in September, Kasdin said of Sprayregen and the Singhs, “We continue to hope to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.”

University officials decline to discuss specifics of negotiations with business owners, though they maintain they are open to deals with the holdouts if the latter are willing to meet them halfway.

“That hasn’t happened,” Siegel claimed. “They never made an offer to him [Sprayregen]. At the meeting I attended, it wasn’t much of a meeting.”

The underground area—known colloquially as the “bathtub”—has been the source of much dispute apart from the issue of eminent domain. It would be built near an earthquake fault line and a flood plane, which critics say could pose environmental hazards, especially in light of the chemicals that would be used in campus laboratories proposed for that space. Sprayregen filed a separate lawsuit citing that concern in March 2008, but it was dismissed that September.

Following the ESDC’s anticipated appeal to Thursday’s ruling, either party would have the option of asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, and Sprayregen and Siegel have vowed to do so.