Columbia University’s planned 17-acre expansion into the Manhattanville area of Harlem hit a huge roadblock yesterday when the Appellate Division, First Department, in a 3-2 decision upset a state ruling that would have allowed the condemnation of land for the school to develop the $6.3 billion project.
The exercise of eminent domain power by the New York State Urban Development Corporation to benefit a “private elite education institution” violates the U.S. and New York state constitutions, and the “first principles of the social contract,” Justice James M. Catterson (See Profile) wrote for the majority in Kaur v. New York State Urban Development Corp, 777, 778.
