From the Develop Don’t Destroy press release:
BROOKLYN, NY— Eleven property owners and tenants have filed a petition asking the Supreme Court of the United States to hear their eminent domain appeal, which was dismissed on February 1 by the Second Circuit Court. The petition provides the Court with an important opportunity to address the appropriate constitutional limits on the government’s power to seize private homes for the benefit of powerful real estate developers like Bruce Ratner.
In 2003 developer Forest City Ratner’s (FCR) CEO Bruce Ratner targeted the plaintiffs’ homes and businesses (and many others) for acquisition and then convinced then Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg to agree to seize the properties and transfer them to Ratner so he could build his proposed 16-skyscraper-and-arena complex known as Atlantic Yards in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Given the mammoth scale and footprint of the project, Atlantic Yards is dependent on the use of eminent domain; it cannot be built unless Ratner succeeds in wresting the properties from the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs filed their original complaint in October 2006. Their suit, Goldstein et al v. Pataki et al, named former Governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, the Empire State Development Corporation, Bruce Ratner and others as defendants. The plaintiffs argued that the use of eminent domain for the Atlantic Yards project violates the United States Constitution because the taking of their property is not primarily for the public’s benefit. While Ratner claims that the project is justified as a public benefit, in fact Ratner is the only who stands to gain and handsomely so from the seizure of plaintiffs’ homes and businesses…