Land grab in New York

Columbia University, a private institution in New York City, got a green light from the U.S. Supreme Court last month to begin seizing private property in its neighborhood, using a state agency to do the dirty work. Too bad.

The outcome is a setback for property rights. But it is business as usual in New York, a state that recognizes few limits on its powers to condemn one person's property for the benefit of another. The Supreme Court was wrong to pass up a chance to stop this sort of theft.

A number of states, including South Carolina, hastened to pass laws sharply narrowing the reach of eminent domain after the Supreme Court ruled in Connecticut's controversial Kelo case, in 2007, that a city could take private land from one owner and hand it over to another if it were fighting "blight."

Unfortunately, a number of states have left the door open to abuse of their property condemnation powers by failing to give a clear and limiting definition to "blight." New York is one.

The Supreme Court declined to review a ruling last year by the New York State Court of Appeals, allowing a state agency, the Empire State Development Corp., to condemn private property in an area of West Harlem known as Manhattanville and transfer it to Columbia University. The university plans to put a satellite campus in that location.

The condemned property consists of two active, tax-paying businesses. In contrast, Columbia University is a tax-exempt organization.

The decision dismissed the finding of a lower court that the official definition of "blight" used by the state could apply to "virtually every neighborhood in the five boroughs" of New York City.

Instead, the appeals court applied the same broad definition of "blight" under which it had allowed a state agency to condemn the large Atlantic Yards property in Brooklyn for the benefit of a private developer.

The fact that Columbia University makes a major economic contribution to New York City suggests why the New York political establishment decided to use its eminent domain power to benefit the university.

But it avoids this central question:

What right does Columbia, or any private entity, have to take someone else's property while using a state agency's determination that the property is "blighted" as a pretext?

Correct answer: None at all.