Tag Archives: abandonment

Property Taken by Eminent Domain Unused

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Photo by Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit

CBS2’s Mary Calvi, photo by Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit

I was interviewed by Mary Calvi on CBS New York in Man Wants Back Property NYC Took From His Family In 1967 (click here to watch the segment). The transcript of the segment reads, in part,

There is a property battle that has been brewing in the Bronx for some time.

A man is fighting to get back a piece of land that he claims belongs to his family.

He says the city took the land five decades ago saying it wants to extend a road, but all these years later nothing has changed, CBS2’s Mary Calvi reported Monday.

Fred Filomio fixes what’s broken on trucks in the Bronx. For decades, one problem has lingered, unfixed.

You see, back in 1967, when he was entering military service, the city of New York, using eminent domain, took part of his family’s property.

“When my uncle Freddie came back from World War II, they bought the whole block,” Filomio said.

A 13,000-square foot piece that sits up 22 feet above street level is a small part of a larger piece of property on Boston Road in the Bronx for his family’s trucking business. Back those 50 years ago, the city said it had to have the property in order to widen a street adjacent to it.

“They haven’t used one square foot of the property,” Filomio said, adding it looks the same as it did five decades ago.

In 50 years, the city has literally done nothing with the property. Filomio even uses it to park his trucks. His lawyer, Richard Apat, has filed suit.

“We feel showing number one it was an excess taking. Number two, it’s now being held as a proprietary. Number three, that we have been in possession we should get it back. But even with that, Fred is a reasonable person. If the city will talk to us and say let’s work something out, he’ll pay them some money, he’ll start paying taxes and that’s why I say I think it’s win-win,” Apat said.

The city responded to CBS2’s numerous requests for comment, with only the following from a spokesperson: “The property involved in this ongoing litigation is not subject to a claim of adverse possession, as a matter of law. We have no further comment while this litigation is pending.”

Professor David Reiss teaches students about eminent domain at Brooklyn Law School. He said he believes this one, like most others, is a difficult one to win.

“It looks like they have a tough row to hoe,” Reiss said. “Once the government takes ownership of the property, generally it’s theirs.”

Vacant Land in NYC

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photo by Eric Fischer

NYC Comptroller Stringer has released an Audit Report on the Development of City-Owned Vacant Lots by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Stringer has  taken some cheap shots on Mayor DeBlasio’s housing plans before (here for instance). This report amounts to another one. The Audit Findings and Conclusion read,

Our audit found that the City owns over a thousand vacant lots that could be developed under existing urban renewal programs, but many of these lots have been allowed to languish and remain undeveloped for up to 50 years or longer.  While HPD contends that over the years it has disposed of most of the lots it has been responsible for, we found that as of September 18, 2015, HPD listed 1,131 vacant lots under its jurisdiction.  Further, we found that although HPD solicits developers to build on these properties, it has not established plans with realistic time schedules to actually transfer City-owned vacant properties to developers.

Pursuant to General Municipal Law § 502, HPD has devised urban renewal plans for areas that include its vacant properties.  However, we found that the projected schedules are often pushed to a later date and sometimes no date is specified at all, notwithstanding the fact that the law requires “a proposed time schedule for the effectuation of such plan.”  Accordingly, it appears that schedules with adequate procedures to enable the transfer of City-owned properties to developers in accordance with those schedules have not been consistently formulated.  Finally, we identified an additional 340 City-owned vacant lots under the jurisdiction of other City agencies that could be considered to be used for residential construction. (2)

Even the language of this summary reveals the Comptroller’s spin. It is laughable to say that the City has allowed vacant land “to languish and remain undeveloped  for up to 50 years or longer.” The fact is that the City took ownership of much of this land during the ’60s and ’70s because it was abandoned by the owners who did not pay their property taxes. Much of the land had absolutely no value for decades.

This has certainly changed in the last 20 years or so, so it is worth evaluating whether the City should be taking more aggressive steps to get this land developed. Certainly one would think that this Mayor would want to do just that. And indeed, the Comptroller’s report shows that the Mayor has slated over half of those parcels for development over the next few years. The City’s response to the Audit indicates that many of the remaining parcels pose development challenges for residential development.

My take (having written extensively about abandoned land in NYC, here for instance) is that Stringer is making a mountain out a molehill. Every mayor from Koch through De Blasio has attempted to develop or sell much of the vacant land owned by the City. This audit fails to demonstrate that the City has a serious problem on this count.