Reverse Eminent Domain

Across New York City, there is a visible divide between development projects built by the private sector and those built by the public sector. You can bet the farm that in the Bronx, there will be a gleaming new Yankee Stadium in time for Opening Day in April — on schedule. Over in Queens, all the smart money says the Mets will be playing on Citi Field as scheduled next year, even if it’s impossible to know who will be managing the team or even playing on it.At Ikea in Red Hook, which opened last month, crowds are so big that the store has 30-minute lines at 9 p.m. on weekdays. Near Bryant Park in Midtown, developer Douglas Durst is nearly finished with the city’s second-tallest building, an office tower that he has leased at record-high rents. Private developers have constructed so many housing units since September 11, 2001, that many neighborhoods hardly resemble their former selves.Nowhere is this divide more visible than at ground zero, where Silverstein Properties’ 7 World Trade Center, which was built on a site that was destroyed by the terrorist attacks of September 11, will be open for business at least seven years before the next office tower is expected to be completed.In the blocks around ground zero, there is even more evidence of public sector ineptitude. Demolition of Fiterman Hall, a former CUNY building irreparably damaged on September 11, is at a standstill. The ill-conceived, poorly executed Fulton Street Transit Hub is tens of millions of dollars over budget, infinitely delayed has become a synonym for boondoggle.Most of us here in New York City are well aware that in the last seven years the 16-acre plot in Lower Manhattan has been a complex, costly, and chaotic battleground where the public sector is fighting against itself. Myriad governmental agencies with little financial incentive to complete the project in a timely fashion are grinding out the clock with no independent oversight, acting like if they just spend enough time and money something will eventually happen.Governor Paterson is proving himself to be a shrewd political player. Blowing the whistle on delays at ground zero was a smart way of pointing out the failures of his predecessors — governors Pataki and Spitzer, as well as Governor Corzine and, yes, Mayor Bloomberg — without making any real changes. The truth is, the whistle could have been blown the day after Mr. Spitzer’s inauguration more than 18 months ago. It could also have waited three months, until Mr. Paterson had come up with a plan for success that includes some improved measures of accountability.This week’s ground zero announcement, which included promises to work out some distant solution, is another glaring example of the public sector working against development of the site. The report painted a scenario with so many unanswered questions that the planned towers will be impossible to lease. Why would Merrill Lynch transfer its struggling operations to an imaginary office tower in the middle of a permanent construction site?What private sector tenant would want to buy anything at the site? When the real estate was booming, the Port Authority couldn’t find tenants for Freedom Tower. For six years now, these columns have argued that the government is not a credible proprietor of ground zero, and it looks more like that’s the case with every passing report. It is too bad we don’t have the equivalent of reverse eminent domain, under which private developers could seize government property if they could convince a court that they could put it to better public use than the government.

Reverse Eminent Domain

Reverse Eminent Domain

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