Columbia Expansion Illegal, New York State Court Says

Bloomberg reports:

Columbia University’s $6.3 billion campus expansion plan is illegal because New York’s use of eminent domain to condemn private property on the school’s behalf was flawed, a state appeals court ruled.

The state used the power, which allows the taking of private land by the government, to seize portions of a 17-acre swath of Manhattan’s upper west side, the appellate division of New York State’s Supreme Court in Manhattan said in a 62-page ruling. The position that the area was “blighted,” justifying seizure, is “mere sophistry” and “idiocy,” the panel said.

The expansion is not a “civic project” because Columbia is a private institution, according to the 3-2 ruling. The “blighted” designation of the properties by a Columbia consultant “was hatched to justify the employment of eminent domain, but this project has always primarily concerned a massive capital project for Columbia.”

The majority, led by Judge James Catterson, ruled there was “no evidence whatsoever that Manhattanville was blighted prior to Columbia gaining control over the vast majority of property therein,” referring to the new campus’s neighborhood.

The consultant study was “egregious” and “preposterous,” he wrote. “Columbia not only purchased or gained control over most of the properties in the area, but it also forced out tenant businesses,” the court said, adding that Columbia deliberately allowed the properties to deteriorate.

A big victory for property rights. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that an institution like Columbia University that hires and promotes Marxists would have nothing but utter contempt for property rights.