Columbia University vs the little guy

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/columbia_vs_the_little_guy_1Kx7nuGlUH2Pzvc4mwGvhK

by cwan • 16 years ago

69 60 16 years ago

iwwr• 16 years ago

So private universities now have the authority of eminent domain to exercise "architectural vision"? This is theft of land.

javanix• 16 years ago

If true, this is by far the most intelligent article I've ever read from the Post.

pslamnp2• 16 years ago

legalized plunder

jimmyk• 16 years ago

I don't know any details not given in the article, but one would think the Supreme Court would welcome the opportunity to rectify their previous decision on eminent domain. Or perhaps they're hoping everyone has forgotten that the land taken in that particular case remains a giant sand lot and don't want to bring it up again. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London

lftl• 16 years ago

One of the few things to be proud of in Alabama politics, is that we immediately passed an amendment that disallows the use of eminent domain in situations where the property will pass to a private owner.

tomjen3• 16 years ago

I am sure thats great news for the individuals in question.

Oh right, doesn't do anything to help those hurt.

lanstein• 16 years ago

"Thank God for Mississippi"

ams6110• 16 years ago

The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

John Adams (http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s15....)

eftpotrm9• 16 years ago

The country was founded on the principle that the primary role of government is to protect property from the majority, and so it remains.

Avram Noam Chomsky

javert5• 16 years ago

Wow, Chomsky got something right! I couldn't agree more.

See, that's a good thing. Stalin and Hitler tried seizing property "for the majority."

jwhitney• 16 years ago

It sounds like a real pisser for the owner of the businesses, but it's hard to take the article seriously when it's so loaded with populist sneering. The first line is the giveaway: "We often hear politicians and pundits denounce property rights" -- do we really? I don't know if I've ever heard a US politician explicitly denounce "property rights" as a broad category. It isn't necessary to keep harping on the broader issue -- just tell the story and it should be clear whose rights are being violated, if any.

presidentender• 16 years ago

I have one philosophical law which governs my behavior and the behavior of my idealized society: no rational agent should ever use force against another. Private property law can't be derived from that, but it's a useful secondary axiom for avoiding the use of force.

The court's decision in this case does mean that force has been used against the property's owners.

eftpotrm9• 16 years ago

While I hate to quote the underlying societal philosophy of Starship Troopers (ahem....) -

And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.

We legally compel all sorts of actions. We obey these compulsions (in theory at least) because we know that if we don't we risk being forcibly compelled to comply or forcibly restricted in other ways, such as fines or imprisonment. I applaud your motives but rationally there is an underlying, implied force behind a great many actions between us.

yardie• 16 years ago

This is the the same New York City where the main industry is the transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich right?

So why am I not surprised when the courts do exactly that?

lambda2• 16 years ago

This article uses language which far overstates the case, and ignores many facts. For instance, it claims that the government is "seizing" the land, which indicates taking property without compensation; eminent domain, however, requires paying fair market value for any land taken (it's basically just an offer to buy your land that you can't refuse). The article uses incorrect terminology ("public domain" when "eminent domain" is meant, though it uses the correct term later). The article sets up strawmen, like the politicians who denounce property rights, without ever quoting any politicians as actually denouncing property rights.

The article tries to position Columbia University as a big bad meanie, only catering to the rich and wealthy; while Columbia is a large institution with considerable resources, it is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and while it does have many rich and well connected students, it also provides need-based scholarships so that anyone who gets in will be able to afford it regardless of their financial status. For many less well-off students, top tier and Ivy-league schools can be more affordable than lower tier or state schools, as there is much more need-based financial aid available.

Now, I disagree strongly with eminent domain being used to buy land and resell it to private for-profit developers. For an educational non-profit like Columbia, it's more of a grey zone. Using language like "seize" and implying that Columbia is a big rich bully doesn't really help to clarify this situation.

meterplech• 16 years ago

Why- Columbia is a big rich bully in this situation. Sure, they are a non-profit, but they have a 6.5 Billion dollar endowment that they are using to lawyer up and kick people out of their land. And, the article is right to note that the people who mostly benefit from this are the mostly affluent students and professors at Columbia. Yes, they are paying them "fair value," how would you feel if someone supposedly wanted to use your startup/company/car and decided took it while giving you an amount they determine as appropriate?

This is a slippery slope that shouldn't be encouraged.

nostromo• 16 years ago

I have to disagree. My own sense is that it has become impossible for the US to complete publicly-beneficial projects anymore.

You see it in many cities that want high-speed rail or simple public transit. These projects have become unaffordable. Why? Not because of the labor or materials cost, but because every piece of land needed for such a project will require a protracted legal battle spanning many years in order to squeeze money from the government and determine a "fair value" that in the end is usually very inflated.

I think the US could find itself in a very sorry situation if we remain paralyzed when it comes to building publicly beneficial infrastructure. Meanwhile China (who I am loathe to imitate) is building itself into the 21st century overnight, while we litigate for years (or decades) over the abandoned lot or corner gas-station that was in the way of something that provides much more value to the public.

tptacek9• 16 years ago

Columbia has apparently purchased the overwhelming majority of the land needed for this project on the private market. They didn't simply decide to "lawyer up and kick people out of their land" (also, for what it's worth, the "land" in question was a largely abandoned warehouse district).

The appeal to personal feelings is also misguided. How would I feel if the State of Illinois decided that a new light rail project should run right through my house? Very, very bad! Burn the witches! But that's a textbook case of eminent domain, not an abuse; the only way to argue against it is to enter into a very unproductive argument about whether all eminent domain claims are abusive.

I disagree with Columbia in this case; the doctrine that says eminent domain comes into play simply because the benificiary can make the property more productive is unsettling. But it's still incumbent on us to make valid arguments.

anamax• 16 years ago

> requires paying fair market value for any land taken

"fair market value" in this case does not mean "what the seller would take". It means "what the buyer thinks that the seller should take".

The seller will argue that a gas station isn't worth much, that a house in that area isn't worth much, etc. However, that land is clearly worth a lot more to the seller, so I'd argue that the "fair market value" is the value to the seller.

> anyone who gets in will be able to afford it regardless of their financial status.

"anyone who gets in" isn't "anyone" - it's folks selected by Columbia, which is a small fraction of "anyone".

For example, that "anyone" doesn't include significant numbers of folks from that neighborhood. You know, the folks who are being displaced....

javert5• 16 years ago

> This article uses language which far overstates the case, and ignores many facts.

I beg to differ.

> (it's basically just an offer to buy your land that you can't refuse).

That's more akin to seizing than not.

> The article sets up strawmen, like the politicians who denounce property rights, without ever quoting any politicians as actually denouncing property rights.

You can't be serious. What about the politicians that want higher taxes? That's a violation of property rights. What about the bailout? What about net neutrality? What about the "socialist" Bernie Sanders?

The problem with this particular case, as with the ones that I just mentioned, is that they are premised on the idea that it's OK to sacrifice somebody for the good of "society" (i.e., someone else). Frankly, human sacrifice is barbaric.

person_b• 16 years ago

Big Rand fan? I love it. :)

BrandonM• 16 years ago

> eminent domain, however, requires paying fair market value for any land taken (it's basically just an offer to buy your land that you can't refuse)

If it's "fair market value," then why do they need to exercise eminent domain in order to force the sale? I don't see how this can ever be considered OK. If you want to buy someone's land and they won't sell it, you offer them more. You get creative and offer to help them relocate their business.

How do you determine "fair market value," anyways? The land and the building on it might be worth like $800,000 according to a property appraiser, but that completely ignores the value of the business. They're going to have to get new property elsewhere and build similar facilities; this will almost certainly cost more than their existing property is worth. So you're forcing a business to eat the cost of relocating, and they're losing revenue during the relocation, and this is fair how?

You can't make people do anything, you can only give them incentive to do what you'd like them to do. In a fair system, that incentive is a compensation package that works for both parties. It's not getting the government on your side to use force as the incentive.

And if the person is irrational and refuses to sell their land at any price, you freaking change your plans. I don't understand why we should accept the idea that certain people have more rights to property ownership than others, for no other reason but money and clout. Although the article wasn't the most well-written, I think it did a good job of conveying that idea.

ekidd• 16 years ago

If it's "fair market value," then why do they need to exercise eminent domain in order to force the sale? I don't see how this can ever be considered OK.

In the U.S., this is specifically discussed in the fifth amendment to the Constitution: ...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

This suggests that government may choose to take private property for public use so long as the compensation is "just". Note that "just" may not be the price that you want the government to pay, but it might instead be based on some other theory of justice, such as the current market value for similar property.

Now, not everything allowed for by the Constitution is morally desirable. (Recall the "3/5ths of a person" compromise.) But the U.S. government does have a defensible rationale for eminent domain; our ancestors agreed to the Constitution, and we haven't ever amended that part of it.

However, the Constitution also says "public use." I'm always very leery when there are private actors involved, not the least because there's a huge incentive to corrupt the government.

kbutler• 16 years ago

> If it's "fair market value," then why do they need to exercise eminent domain in order to force the sale?

Because sometimes individuals choose not to sell at the fair market value (e.g., not everyone sells their stock at the current stock price - in fact, some people choose to buy at that price. That's the definition of a fair market value.)

> And if the person is irrational and refuses to sell their land at any price, you freaking change your plans.

Sometimes this makes the plans dramatically more expensive and/or impossible. The canonical example is if a road needs to be built. It may be that there is _no_ viable route where all the existing property owners are willing to sell. This may either be because of personal attachments to the property or because they know that as the last holdout, they can demand a higher price.

In either case, "eminent domain" says the government can force the sale, paying a just compensation, in order to promote the public welfare.

Yes, this is imperfect (the owner may not consider it a fair price, or may not want to sell at any price). Yes, it is open to abuse. But yes, there are cases where it is needed, hence the inclusion in the Constitution, but with possibility of judicial and electoral review.

eftpotrm9• 16 years ago

Eminent domain (or compulsory purchase in the UK) is designed to keep fair market value fair though. Otherwise there is an escalating cost of acquisition for each subsequent parcel of land - the cost to abandon the project rises with each previous purchase and every delay caused by an individual seller and the last to sell is in a position to obtain a very substantial surplus over the natural market value, simply because that one asset holds the entire remainder to ransom. This might be natural, unfettered markets in action, but it's also rather close to extortion for my taste.

lambda2• 16 years ago

> If it's "fair market value," then why do they need to exercise eminent domain in order to force the sale?

Because without something like eminent domain, someone with a relatively worthless piece of property can inflate the value of it by holding an entire project hostage in exchange for their piece of land. If I have land that I ordinarily couldn't sell for more than a hundred thousand, but I know that the government will be doing a multi-million dollar project, I might demand a half a million for my land, in order to make a nice profit at the taxpayer's expense.

Now, this case is in more of a grey zone than that. It's not at the taxpayers expense, but at the expense of a private, non-profit institution. I'm not sure how I feel about that; it's certainly less objectionable than using eminent domain for a for-profit developer, but still makes me uneasy.

Even more troubling, however, is the fact that if you check other sources on this story, such as Columbia's own daily paper http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2010/12/13/us-supreme-court... , you find that part of the reason the neighborhood has been determined "blighted", which is necessary for the justification that it's in the state's interest to buy the land and sell it to someone else, is that Columbia has already bought up many of the buildings in the area and left them abandoned. If that claim is true, then it certainly is outrageous to grant eminent domain on that basis; it means that any private developer who wants to gobble up land can just destroy the neighborhood, both driving down prices and allowing them to use eminent domain to buy up any remaining land.

The strident populist rhetoric in the New York Post article originally linked to is a bit misplaced. But given a bit more research, I'm inclined to agree on this particular case that there's something pretty rotten going on here.

> I don't understand why we should accept the idea that certain people have more rights to property ownership than others, for no other reason but money and clout.

The idea is that the city or state has an interest in cleaning up blighted neighborhoods; there are serious risks of crime, public health, land value, and the like with property is allowed to decay. When that really is the case, there is an argument for the government having the power to buy up whole blocks at a time in order to redevelop them (it is very difficult to impossible to fight blight a bit at a time, since no one wants to move in next to an abandoned building filled with squatters or drug dealers). However, it should not be the case that a private developer can cause blight buy buying and abandoning land, and then using that as an excuse to get the rest of the land through eminent domain.

firemanx• 16 years ago

Considering that value is an abstract concept - ie, ultimately (in usual business dealings), its determined by how I "vote" with my dollars and not some empirical physical rule, I think the concept of "fair market value" in the case of eminent domain is a complete sham, much like property taxes based on fair market value. If I haven't made any monetary choices and someone else has decided those choices for me, there is no value whatsoever.

Not that it really matters in the scope of the legal world, it's more of a philosophical argument, but its something thats constantly pissed me off about eminent domain, easements and property taxes.

tcskeptic• 16 years ago

A couple of points:

The term seizing implies the use of force, not necessarily the absence of compensation. When you have no choice but to sell, seizing is indeed the appropriate term.

I'm not educated in the law, so I cannot speak with authority to your assertion about the incorrect use of the term "public-domain". However, given that the term is in quotes and the the author is Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee, my guess is that the term has a historical context of which I am unaware.

Just because Columbia serves many "less well-off" students, or is a 501(c)(3) non-profit does not mean that Columbia is not the big bad meanie in this case. They are an enourmously powerful and influential institution.

Using this legal power to seize (And I use this term advisedly) a small business owners property makes them a bully in my book. There is probably a price at which he would sell willingly, Columbia almost certainly has the resources to pay that price, they are using the power of this law to twist his property out of his hand backed by the power of the state, this in order to further their "Vision". That is wrong.

patio113• 16 years ago

it's basically just an offer to buy your land that you can't refuse

That is a seizure, full-stop. Imagine if Microsoft or Oracle decided to get into the bingo business and convinced the state of Illinois that the public would be best served by them running BCC rather than me. Fair market value for BCC is almost certainly south of $50k, based on sales of other websites, revenue multiples, and the like. I have no desire to sell BCC for anything close to that number: I have plans for the future, get psychic enjoyment out of it, etc etc. Tough to be me, though, if someone with deep pockets convinces the government to pretend they have constitutional authority to be an M&A team with guns.

tptacek9• 16 years ago

It is not reasonable to compare the "fair market value" of a small business with the fair market value of Manhattan real estate, which is far more liquid and easily valued.

jonknee• 16 years ago

It's not quite a fair comparison as these two businesses can simply move next door and continue to operate shop. It would be more similar to Microsoft buying land that included the BCC offices and you had to accept it and then move down the block. Depending on the offer it ranges from a really good deal to outright theft.

tptacek9• 16 years ago

As has been pointed out by many people, while Columbia is to a large extend a social club for extremely privileged young people, the extensions being built are largely intended to support research work, the output of which is a public good. Apparently, Columbia's research facilities are genuinely and alarmingly overcrowded.

It is misleading to suggest that Columbia is arranging to have private property seized simply for the benefit of those wealthy enough to attend Columbia.

I'm opposed to the underlying doctrine of eminent domain that suggests that land can be seized if the parties who it will be granted to can make better overall economic use of it, and thus I suppose "opposed" to this instance of eminent domain, but it's still important to have the facts straight.

forgotAgain• 16 years ago

A couple of things that are left out of the story:

- The area in question is blighted. This isn't an old area like SoHo is old. Think of the worst images of New York City from forty years ago. Think of the Charles Bronson vigilante movies from the 1970's.

- If you've been to a top school in the past few years you know that they've been involved in an arms race of building facilities. If you want to be a top university in this country you need to be able to attract the top faculty and students. You need the infrastructure. In NYC this is almost impossible given the cost of real estate and overcrowding. Columbia isn't doing this as a capricious act. It needs to expand if it is going to survive as a premier university. This isn't being done to build luxury dorms for rich undergrads. This is being done to provide new research and teaching facilities so that a two hundred fifty year old university can continue into the future.

- The businesses in question are the last in the area. Over the last ten years or so there has been a lot of back and forth between the university and its surrounding neighborhood. Some of it Columbia should be very embarrassed (perhaps even ashamed about) but after much squabbling the businesses in the article are the last holdouts. There is a lot being given back to the community by Columbia to make up for taking a larger part of the neighborhood. This includes cash payments, new schools, new community centers and housing for those displaced.

- The businesses in question were offered payment much in excess of what their properties are worth. The warehouse company was also offered a swap for real estate in a much more desirable location in the area. It agreed to the swap and then reneged on the deal.

The situation sucks but it's the world we live in. It's almost impossible for an institution to grow in the center of a major urban area. At the same time those institutions must grow if the urban area is to remain vibrant for its citizens going into the future. All things considered I think Columbia has been getting a raw deal in the condemnations like the one in the NY Post. It's easy pickings for the paper to rile up it's readers but in the end it only hurts the city as a whole.

I'm not part of Columbia but my wife is an alumni and my daughter is a current student there.

bluesnowmonkey• 16 years ago

> It needs to expand if it is going to survive as a premier university.

How is it in the public's interest that Columbia be a premier university? If their top faculty leaves to teach elsewhere, they'll still be teaching. Students will receive their educations. Columbia does worse, other schools do better. No net loss.

Columbia University vs the little guy

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