I decided to start reading the newspaper so I can learn what is going on the world and to hopefully figure out what I believe and feel on certain subjects. I came across this article regarding my employer. I looked up eminent domain and I don't understand how the University can use this to seize the land. Can anyone help me understand this?
Here is the article, link is below it.
--------------------
Stony Brook seizes key land
--------------------
University adds former industrial land to campus by eminent domain
after company rejects $26M offer
BY EMI ENDO
STAFF WRITER
November 4, 2005
Stony Brook University has taken title to the 246-acre property it is
seizing from a former defense manufacturer, university officials
announced yesterday.
After Gyrodyne Co. of America rejected a $26-million offer from Stony
Brook for the site, which sits next to the university on Route 25A,
negotiations broke down last month and the school moved to condemn the land
through eminent domain.
Gyrodyne yesterday received notice that the university had filed an
acquisition map with the Suffolk County clerk to formally take the title.
"We own the property," Shirley Strum Kenny, the university's president,
said yesterday. She added, "we can begin work now on a Center for
Excellence and Wireless and Information Technology."
The proposed center would be made up of 22 laboratories in a
100,000-square-foot building. University faculty, students and local businesses
would conduct research focusing on homeland security, cyber security and
other technologies, according to the school. Construction is expected
to begin in 2006 and the center would open in 2008.
Gyrodyne executives yesterday said they would consider the $26,315,000
a mere "advance payment" and ask the State Court of Claims to set a
much higher value.
Stephen Maroney, Gyrodyne's president and chief executive officer,
called the university's action a "confiscation, not a condemnation ...
We're confident that we will get just compensation for this property."
Ray Montelione, who lives between the university and the site known as
Flowerfield, said he and other neighbors had concerns about traffic
congestion and development on the site. Referring to a recent U.S. Supreme
Court decision in a Connecticut case on eminent domain, he said, "the
government can take your house" for economic development.
The land is zoned light industrial and straddles the towns of
Brookhaven and Smithtown. As one of the last large parcels of undeveloped land
on Suffolk's North Shore, it has been the focus of a highly contentious
eminent domain case.
George Tsunis, president of George Tsunis Real Estate in Hauppauge,
said yesterday he had "written offers in from national developers" for the
site for more than $80 million.
Gyrodyne officials have said they had received offers exceeding $100
million, but Stony Brook representatives said the land would be worth
that much only if the towns changed the zoning to permit the building of
houses.
Strum Kenny said, "We acquired several appraisals based on the current
zoning," and "made a good-faith offer for the property."
Gyrodyne, which stopped manufacturing in 1975, had wanted to build a
golf course community on the property, which is 314 acres. The company
will keep the remaining 68 acres.
Staff writer Olivia Winslow contributed to this story.
Copyright (c) 2005, Newsday, Inc.
--------------------
This article originally appeared at:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/lo...-top-headlines