Meditrina

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.

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Stony Brook seizes key land
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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.

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This article originally appeared at:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/lo...-top-headlines

__________________
"Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles." ~Alex Karras

shakran

Emminent domain basically says that if the government determines it would be better for the public if the land were used for a different purpose, the government can seize that land (paying fair market price) and turn it over for that purpose.

It was really meant for things like building interstates. If someone didn't want to sell the land that I-40 had to pass through, the government could force them to sell it.

But it's been abused lately in cases such as this, and others. I remember one case I covered a few years ago where a hardware store wanted to build a bigger store, and needed to tear down a gift shop to do it. They managed to do it through emminent domain, which IMO was total bullshit. If the giftshop owner, who paid for his store and who invested a lot of money into making his store what it was doesn't want to sell, he shouldn't be forced to.

SERPENT7

Emminent domain actually violates the constitution, which states that personal property rights are practicaly enshrined by the hand of god. The supreme court has really fucked up this time, when they ruled a piece of land could be siezed and sold to a developer for the purpose of building a shopping mall!
Originally it was designed to allow the gov to force you to sell land to THEM so they could build roads, and such (As stated above) or build a new city hall or a missle base, or w/e. The new ruling however opens it WAY up for serious abuse by the rich, or in this case the sorta rich.
Personally, i'd rather see the land turned into a university than a golf course or shore front residential development, but it is still wrong to TAKE something from a private owner and give it to another private owner.

flstf

Emminent Domain is the procedure by which the politically connected can use the government to force you to sell them your property for much less than they would have to pay otherwise.

Rodney

They'd never get away with that in California. Cities and counties here need the property tax revenues too badly; and once the university takes title, the land is off the tax rolls forever. Also, once a gov't agency takes land, it can disregard all local zoning regulations and general plan guidelines.

Some university tries that in these parts, they'd get their heads handed to them. When our local university expands its property holdings, it pays the asking price. And even so, people are pissed at them because they'll build whatever they want, even in a residential neighborhood.

pan6467

In this caseand similar cases if the company isn't making improvements or upkeeping the land, then the University has a case.

However, if the company has been paying taxes and upkeeping the place then there they have a good case.

But with recent SC rulings my guess is the company will lose, as the university will claim, "they are adding to the community." The University though should pay fair market value for the land.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Reese

Emminent Domain's biggest flaw is that Fair Market Value isn't fair at all. Not only are they Forcing you to sell it to them, they're not even paying you half the price you could get out of it if wanted to sell it in the first place.

__________________
“It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick” - Dave Barry

denim

Given what's currently going through Congress due to what happened in New London, I wonder what will happen here.