How Much Deference to Public Use Determinations?

How closely will New York courts scrutinize exercises of the eminent domain power? Until recently, courts have been quite deferential when entities clothed with eminent domain power have determined that private property is necessary for public use. Two recent decisions, however, suggest that there are limits to that deference.

Background

Article I, Section 7, of The New York State Constitution, like the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, provides that "[p]rivate property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation." At the federal level, the United States Supreme Court has transformed the "public use" requirement into a "public purpose" requirement; so long as the condemnor can conjure up a public purpose for the taking, the condemnor does not have to demonstrate that the property will be open to the public. The Court had abandoned any requirement that the condemnor show use the public as early as 1906 in Strickley v. Bay Gold Mining Co., 200 U.S. 527, and the Court reaffirmed that position in Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469, where it sustained a taking for economic development purposes. In Kelo, Justice Stevens also indicated that the Court would defer to the condemning authority on another issue: what land does the condemnor need to accomplish the public purpose.