A press release from Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn links to the opening brief filed recently by the property owners who object to the taking of their property for the Atlantic Yards “redevelopment” project in Brooklyn in Goldstein v. New York State Urban Dev. Corp.
Here’s the summary of the issues presented in the brief:
1. Whether the public use requirement of the NY Constitution imposes amore stringent standard for takings than does the Fifth Amendment—aquestion expressly preserved by the Court of Appeals in Aspen CreekEstates, Ltd. v. Brookhaven (2009), and never before considered by anycourt in New York;
2. Whether the public use requirement of the NY Constitution “issatisfied when a condemning authority determines that he public benefitto be gained by forcibly appropriating citizens’ homes and businessesis ‘not incidental or pretextual in comparison with benefits toparticular, favored private entities,”‘ without ever examining thenature and magnitude of the private benefit and thus failing to createany record that would allow a reviewing court to make such adetermination—a question never before considered by any court in thisState (and ignored by the Appellate Division in this action)”;
3. Whether, according to Article XVIII, Section 6 of the Constitution,subsidized “blight clearance” projects must be restricted to “personsof low income.”
The New York Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments in the appeal on October 14, 2009 at 2 pm in Albany.