Unsurprisingly there isn't a lot there in the majority opinion in Bowers Dev. LLC v. Oneida Cnty. Indus, Dev. Agency, No. 2022-00744 (Dec. 23, 2022) (this is from the New York courts after all, which don't seem to write long opinions), but we're posting it so you can compare the majority with the dissent.
Majority: agency's power to take is limited by the terms of the delegation of eminent domain power (for "commercial" facilities), and here, eminent domain is being used to take property for a parking lot for a hospital. That isn't a "commercial" use. Slip op. at 2 ("While OCIDA’s determination and findings indicate that the subject property was to be acquired for use as a surface parking lot, the record establishes that, contrary to respondents’ assertion, the primary purpose of the acquisition was not a commercial purpose. Rather, the property was to be acquired because it was a necessary component of a larger hospital and healthcare facility project.").
Dissent: Not so fast: courts are supposed to defer to an agency's statements about why it is taking property, and we're supposed to defer to an agency's interpretation of what ambiguous statutory terms such as "commercial" mean. See slip op. at 5 (the majority "further concludes, in summary fashion and without any elaboration, that OCIDA’s use of eminent domain here “was not [for] a commercial purpose.” The majority’s conclusion on that latter issue, however, gives no deference to OCIDA’s express determination that it was exercising its lawful eminent domain power in furtherance of its express corporate purpose to 'promote, develop, encourage and assist in the acquiring, constructing, reconstructing, improving, maintaining, equipping and furnishing,' inter alia, 'commercial' facilities, and 'thereby advance the job opportunities, health, general prosperity and economic welfare of the people of the [S]tate of New York'") (Curran, J., dissenting).
Whose vision do you like more?
Bowers Dev. LLC v. Oneida Cnty. Indus. Dev. Agency, No. 22-00744 (N.Y. App. Div. Dec. 23, 2022)
