More Amicus Briefs Filed in Support of Property Owner in Just Compensation Case

Two other amicus briefs have been filed in support of the petitioner in River Center LLC v. Dormitory Auth. of the State of New York, No. 11-922 (cert. petition filed Jan. 23, 2012). [Disclosure: Owners’ Counsel has also filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioner, see our previous post here.]

Motion for Leave to File Brief and Brief for Real Estate Board of New York, Inc., International Council of Shopping Centers, National Multi Housing Council, and Real Estate Roundtable as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners

Presents the following question: 

Whether state-court valuation rules in condemnation proceedings that systematically exclude or ignore all relevant market-based evidence favorable to the owner on the value of a parcel in development afford the owner of real property “the full and perfect equivalent in money of the property taken,” as required under the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution?

Motion for Leave to File and Brief of Amicus Curiae Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence in Support of the Petitioner

Presents the following question: 

Does just compensation under the Fifth Amendment for a taking by eminent domain include the value of land uses that the condemning agency illegally sought to delay and frustrate?

This case involves one of the largest condemnations of private property in the history of New York City – the taking of the unused development rights of an entire city block located in the area of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.  At issue are important questions about the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment which limits the government’s power of eminent domain by requiring that “just compensation” be paid to an owner if private property is taken for public use. The property owner is challenging the compensation awarded by the New York courts for the condemnation of its private property.

The petitioner in River Center filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari seeking review of the New York courts, which denied the landowner and developer the right to present evidence concerning the value of land taken by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York.  The petitioner had the intention of developing the property into a multi-use commercial, retail, and residential complex.  Its plans and ability to do so, however, were severely restricted by the Dormitory Authority’s strategic interference over 19 months to deny the re-zoning of the property and delay construction.  When the property was eventually condemned by the Dormitory Authority in 2001, the intended development had not yet broken ground.

For more information visit inversecondemnation.com; blogger and attorney, Robert Thomas, prepared and filed OCA’s amicus brief in this case. [Disclosure: Robert is also the Hawaii member of the Owners’ Counsel.]

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