Willets Point is an industrial-zoned neighborhood in Northern Queens, NY that is home to many small factories, garages, auto-shops, and storage areas. The area has storm sewers that are largely in disrepair, the streets are poorly maintained, with worn down (or sometimes never constructed) side-walks and curbs. Also, there is no regular trash removal and a lack of functional fire hydrants. In May of 2007, Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a $3 billion plan to renovate the area using its power of eminent domain and it was approved by the City Council. Plaintiffs filed suit alleging that the City has “’systemically deprived Willets Point of the vital infrastructure in order to drive down the value of the existing businesses and their property, so that the City more easily can justify and finance the exercise of its powers of eminent domain’ as part of a ‘forty-year effort to condemn Willets Point, destroy its businesses and deliver it to developers.’” Furthermore, plaintiffs allege that the new plan is a continuance of neglecting Willets Point to drive down property values. The city filed a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss.
The Plaintiffs alleged that the City’s failure to provide basic infrastructure while providing it to surrounding neighborhoods violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Court dismissed this as nothing more than “bare assertions,” noting that the City has a rational basis for not spending money or other resources in Willets Point until a comprehensive redevelopment plan was finalized. With respect to the procedural due process claim, the Court noted that even if the Plaintiffs had stated a valid cause of action (to wit that they were improperly denied the right to challenge the deprivation of sewers and infrastructure), the Court first noted that the City Charter states that a “municipality’s obligation serves public rather than private ends, the mere existence of an obligation does not constitute a protected property interest if benefits are received by individuals only indirectly as members of the public at large.” Furthermore, the Court said that it could not issue the requested injunction forcing the City to construct and maintain infrastructure in the area since the Plaintiffs had forty years within which to bring their claim, and there was no reasonable excuse for the delay in pursuing this legal challenge.
Willets Point Industry and Realty Association v. City of New York, 2009 WL 4282017 (E.D.N.Y. 11/25/2009).
The decision can be accessed here
Read the NY Times blog here: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/court-upholds-willets-point-redevelopment-plan
For more on eminent domain in New York and Willets Point in particular, visit the following blog: http://www.willetspoint.org/
