Last month, New York’s high court heard oral arguments in an interesting case involving the condemnation of land as part of the Town’s farmland preservation program.
In a short memorandum opinion issued last week, the Court said upheld the condemnation without addressing the Plaintiff’s Kelo argument, finding that the challenged taking was constitutionally proper even assuming a preexisting farmland plan was necessary. The Court found that the Town had legislatively evidenced its policy of farmland preservation through the Town’s master plans supporting this goal. The Court also noted that Town voters had approved the issuance of $130 million of bonds to acquire rights in undeveloped land in the Town, and among areas identified for possible use of the funds was the tract of land in question. The Court concluded, “In short, the public benefits of the taking in this case were not incidental or pretextual in comparison with benefits to particular, favored private entities; petitioner’s remaining arguments likewise lack merit.” The Court also noted that since the parties did not argued whether the New York Constitution (see NY Const, art I, § 7[a]) imposes a more stringent standard for takings than does the Fifth Amendment as interpreted by Kelo, they would not address that issue.
Matter of Aspen Creek Estates, Ltd. v. Town of Brookhaven, 2009 WL 382534 (N.Y. 2/17/2009).
The opinion can be accessed at: http://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/decisions/2009/feb09/19mem09.pdf
Read what the InverseCondemnation Blog has to say about this opinion here.
Yessiree Bob. Supplying wealthy suburbanites with fresh, locally grown strawberries is just what the Framers must have had in mind when they inseted the “public usze” clause into the Fifth Amendment.
By: Gideon Kanner on February 23, 2009
at 9:34 pm