New York should seize Trump Tower (Catherine Rampell, Washington Post)

[highplainsdem]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/new-york-should-seize-trump-tower/2016/12/12/6dfdfc50-c0b2-11e6-897f-918837dae0ae_story.html

The challenges of securing this 58-story building in a high-density neighborhood will, by Inauguration Day alone, drain $35 million of local taxpayer money. Who knows the additional costs to commerce and property values?

The feds have thus far been stingy about footing the bill. Fortunately, I’ve come up with a solution that should warm the cockles of the president-elect’s heart: New York should use eminent domain to seize Trump Tower.

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New York officials probably won’t take my advice, since seizing Trump’s property might appear partisan. (Manhattanites voted against Trump by about 10 to 1.) But, according to almost every eminent-domain scholar and land-use lawyer I consulted, if the city tried my strategy, courts would probably uphold it.

As Trump well knows, New York has one of the most expansive eminent domain laws in the country, and has condemned property as “blighted” for fairly flimsy reasons.

-snip-

The city doesn’t need to prove that Trump Tower is derelict to declare it “blighted”; the mere fact that it’s hindering traffic, impeding commerce and draining the public fisc could be sufficient. Then officials just need to find some alternate use for the property — perhaps a Hamilton memorial? — that they could reasonably believe better serves the city’s interests.

Of course, the city would have to pay Trump the fair-market value of the property, about $471 million.

If New York wants to cut its costs, however, it could instead place a negative easement on Trump Tower, one that allowed Trump to retain ownership but prevented any presidents or presidents-elect from living there. The city would have to compensate Trump for lost value to the property as a result, but that would likely be small.

Finally, if the city were especially cheap (and cheeky), it could declare Trump’s active residence in Trump Tower a “public nuisance.”

-snip-

[JudyM]

1. Public nuisance, just like him.

[Jake Stern]

2. While cute it's not a good idea

Remember, Herren und Damen, what we do to them they can do to US.

Say a future Democratic president comes from Texas and they too decide to be cute and use eminent domain to seize his property citing increased security costs and inconvenience to residents while the real goal is to make him to feel unwelcome?

We would have no moral standing to tut-tut that move, after all we did it too.