Eminent Domain for Private Gain
The Town of Hempstead is taking the private property of struggling landlords to give to a rich developer.

Landlords and Business Owners intend to come out fighting against the tyranny of the local government. The Town of Hempstead has informed them that it wants their property and will stop at nothing to get what it wants. On September 9th at 11:00 am the case goes before the planning board.

Over the decades three Landlords bought dilapidated buildings on the corner of Hempstead Turnpike and Elmont Rd in the struggling New York suburb of Elmont and renovated them. To their credit they successfully rented them out ever since with no vacancies. Recently, they were informed the Town of Hempstead would be seizing all of their property here at the corner of the Argo Theater. What is even more calamitous is that these very same landlords lost their right to fight the decision, because they missed a small legal notice in the paper. Not as if it would matter as the State of New York has, by no coincidence, some of the most ambiguous regulations regarding “eminent domain” matters making it virtually impossible for any individual to hold onto their property if the government wants it.
Just about everyone knows that under a process called eminent domain, the government can (and does) seize private property for public use - to build a road, a school or a courthouse.

But did you know the government can also seize your land for private use if they can prove that doing it will serve what is called "the public good"?

In this case, the public good is taking a cell tower lot, 4 strip center buildings, 29 businesses and the use of a municipal parking lot for an “alleged” SuperCenter Supermarket. Land totaling 2.91 acres.
More than 10,000 homes and small businesses and are experiencing eminent domain.
Across the country, our government has been using eminent domain to force people off their land, so private developers can build more expensive homes, buildings and offices that they say will be more for the “public good” than the buildings they are replacing.
The Constitution gives local governments the right to condemn property through eminent domain for "public use" if the owner is compensated. But in the past five years, both state and local governments have taken or threatened to take more than 10,000 homes and small businesses, such as the lot, 4 buildings and 29 Businesses here at the Argo in Elmont, to turn them over to private developers. This is according to a report compiled by the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit advocacy law firm in Washington.
"Practically every house in the entire country would produce more jobs and taxes as an office building, and everybody's small business would produce more jobs and taxes if it were removed and turned into a Costco," says Dana Berliner, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice. "If that's all it takes, then your house or business can be up for grabs as soon as some private business interest takes a fancy to it."
The compensation for the property varies but in many cases is grossly lower than market value. This is usually appealed and goes to court. A condemnation attorney will normally take a third of any increase over the initial offer. So either way the owner will never get what the building is worth.
The Process of Eminent Domain.
Under eminent domain, our government buys your property, paying you what it determines to be fair market value. This is the process they need to follow in New York.
• Normally a developer with and/or a civic group will plant a seed, an idea with local government officials. They may say “this looks like a great place for a restaurant, office building, supermarket etc. ” After a few meetings, the government can start the process of “SEIZING property” usually with your tax money.
• The first step is to find an urban planner to show that the subject area is “blighted” and create a blight study. No Landlord or Business Owner needs to know about the blight study - it is done in secret. Upon completion, it is then turned over to the town council for formal adoption.
• The second step, (here is a mind blowing conflict of interest) if the urban planner can show that the property is blighted, he will by contracted by the town for the second part of the project called “The Urban Plan” This is a more detailed explanation of what will be done to the property. Once the urban plan is complete, a small legal notice is advertised in the newspaper. The plan then goes before the planning Board for a recommendation. The planning board makes a recommendation as to the consistency of the urban plan with the blight study. It then gives its recommendation to town council for formal adoption.
• Now that the first two parts of the process is done, the town can move more swiftly. They put out “Request for Proposals” This is where all the contractors, mostly those who work on this with the town time and time again, send in their idea for the property.
• Lastly comes the time to inform the landlords and storeowners that they need to sell and/or move. They do not know what compensation they will get. At this point, they may contacted by the developer with an offer. If a deal cannot be made between the property owners, business owners and the developer, then the town officials will get involved. They will hire an appraiser, one who works for and has a relation with the town (again your taxes at work) and appraise the property or business. (Usually less than market value). This allocated money is then placed into an account, the title is then subsequently seized from the owner, and the business is relocated.
Already a blight shadow is hanging over the landlords and business owners heads. This is the period of uncertainty during the process and causes financial loss to all. A tenant is afraid to invest in their business. Landlords can’t rent vacant stores, who will rent and retro fit a store just to move in a short time.
The increase in the use of eminent domain for private entities has created a groundswell of opposition from New York to California. Many say the Kelo Case opened the flood gates.
Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005)[1], was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another to further economic development. The case arose from the condemnation by New London, Connecticut, of privately owned real property so that it could be used as part of a comprehensive redevelopment plan. The Court held in a 5-4 decision that the general benefits a community enjoyed from economic growth qualified such redevelopment plans as a permissible "public use" under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
So what is Blight?
Definitions for blight, established by various legal cases, are often fairly general and broad-scoped. The Constitution of the State of New York, Article XVIII, Section 3 uses the precedent established by Yonkers v. Morris to define blight as follows (Yonkers Community Development Agency v. Morris (1975) 37 NY2d 478):
* Factors to be considered in determining if area is "blighted" and thus subject to urban renewal condemnation include such diverse matters as irregularity of the plots, inadequacy of the streets, diversity of land ownership making assemblage of property difficult, incompatibility of existing mixture of residential and industrial property, overcrowding, incidence of crime, lack of sanitation, drain areas makes on municipal services, fire hazards, traffic congestion and pollution.
* For an area to be termed "blighted" and thus subject to urban renewal condemnation, degree of deterioration or precise percentage of obsolescence or mathematical measurement of other factors do not have to be arrived at with precision, since combination and effects of such things are highly variable.
* The term "blighted area" for purposes of urban renewal condemnation, encompasses areas in process of deterioration or threatened with it as well as one already rendered useless and may include vacant land and air rights. entrances, or other similar facilities, over which air rights and easements or other rights of user necessary for the use and development of such air rights, to be developed as air rights sites for the elimination of the blighting influence, or any combination thereof and may include land, buildings or improvements, or air rights and concomitant easements or other rights of user necessary for the use and development of such air rights, not in themselves substandard or insanitary, the inclusion of which is deemed necessary for the effective undertaking of one or more urban renewal programs.
THEY WILL GET RICH!!!
Why is it so important to our politicians to steal this property away from businesses, landlords and you the local community? Why take property from private business and give it to a rich private developer? Maybe an article in a local paper has the answer.
“Governor David Paterson’s emergency call to solve the state’s fiscal crisis could prompt New York lawmakers to revisit the possibility of putting gaming at Belmont Park in addition to Aqueduct.”
So the plot begins to unfold. Sure the town and their Developers would like to get a hold of these lots before the gambling racino gets here so that someone will make a huge profit.
Politicians & developers can’t just take it. They cloak it in lies like a supermarket so they can use the loophole in the law called “Eminent Domain” to steal it!



THEY MAY BUILD LOW INCOME HOUSING!!!
Now what do they say to try to convince local citizens that this is a good idea. “We will give you a SuperCenter Supermarket here at the Argo, the corner of Elmont Rd and Hempstead Tpk. NONSENSE! Any expert will tell you that a Supercenter is 80,000 - 120,000 square feet and what is proposed here is only 40,000 square feet. Besides, the A&P supermarket was the old tenant across the street where the Salvation Army is now and it went out of business there. Waldbaums another large supermarket chain had a location 2/10s of a mile away, where Home Depot is now and they went out of business. A Met Foods was once a tenant in the Argo building and it suffered the same fate. This is because the Belmont racetrack across the street takes up ¼ of the area of Elmont with 620 acres and the vast Beth David cemetery a half a mile to the south takes another ¼.
Furthermore, simple economics will tell you the project doesn’t make sense financially. A developer, by law, has to pay to buy all the existing buildings from the landlords. The going average rate of $250 per square foot, as seen on loopnet.com for other commercial strip centers for sale in Nassau county, would means it would cost $250 x 60,000 square foot (existing sq ft) = $ 15,000,000. The developer would have to relocate all the 29 businesses; this includes rent, moving expense and refit. The estimate for this could be $1,000,000. The cost to build the new structure typically is $100 per square foot, so $100 x 40,000 = $4,000,000.00. This is a grand total of $20,000,000.
How much is the new 40,000 square foot supermarket worth? Well, supermarkets typically pay $18-$22 a sq ft. So $20 x 40,000 = $800,000 a year in rent minus tax, maintenance and repair. So the income is probably $725,000 a year. It would take 27 years for the developer to make his money back and start to make a profit. Besides according to our figures the new structure would only be worth about $ 10,000,000 ($250 x 40,000). This is half of what it cost to build.
So what’s the catch? The answer is hidden in the politics of eminent domain. After the process comes full circle and the property is taken, the developer can show that they cannot secure a tenant for the project. Also the language is broad and in the end it simply means that retail will be built at the location. In many cases the developer pulls out of the project as it was originally designed for financial or other reasons and they redesign it. This could change the use, the square footage and even the zoning.

So if it will not be a supermarket, then what will it be? It could end up as anything from a Hooters restaurant to low income housing (always a good idea for votes.) Restaurants pay much higher rent and use less space. Low income housing has many subsidies.
THE GOVERNMENT’S TRACK RECORD
Let’s see some examples of the town at work and maybe we can get an idea of what is in store for the Argo.
*A senior center in the western side of the municipal parking lot was a town project. It’s now condemned due to mold!
*The same is true for the mold-encased Archstone apartments in Westbury at Roosevelt Field!
*About 10 years ago the town stole the property where the White Tavern, a Paper Distributor and a Iron Works once stood by Eminent Domain (using our tax dollars). These properties (now empty lots) span 2 blocks on the north side of Hempstead Tpk about ¼ mile east of the Argo. Ten years later they remain empty lots where drug dealers hang out.
These are a testament as to why we should not let government interfere with free enterprise. Let free enterprise work, if a developer wants a property let them negotiate with the landlord directly.

What if you wanted to sell a property to the town for developement who would you contact?