Several businesses occupying property on which Columbia would like to build have been resisting takeover by using Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests, among other means – plus legal actions to enforce those requests – in preparation for an eminent domain battle they vow to take all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The businesses seek access to communications between one development consultant and two of its clients. Alee King Rosen and Fleming, an environmental planning and engineering firm known as AKRF, has been hired by both Columbia, which must clear public process hurdles on the way to redevelopment; and the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), a state authority with the ability to label an area "blighted," thus allowing the state to use its eminent domain powers to claim the area for redevelopment.
The issue is particularly contentious because Columbia’s 17-acre plan is competing with the rezoning proposal of the local community board, which also would allow the university to expand, but on different terms.
Attorneys representing the self-storage company Tuck-It-Away, at 131st Street and Broadway, along with the West Harlem Business Group – a clutch of companies that's resisting being bought out – filed two briefs in state Supreme Court last week in favor of unveiling more than 100 previously unreleased documents. Some of the sought-after communications are between AKRF – an increasingly visible development consultant on city projects– and clients Columbia and ESDC. Nick Sprayregen, owner of Tuck-it-Away Storage, says he hopes the documents will reveal that there was a “conflict of interest at the very least,” that could delay the whole condemnation process.
Attorney Norman Siegel, the former New York Civil Liberties Union chief and candidate for public advocate, represents the businesses in their bid to uphold a June 27 state Supreme Court decision ordering the documents be made public. That decision was appealed by ESDC.
The case "opens serious and substantial questions about the status quo of how development goes on in New York," Siegel said. That's because AKRF wore two hats – one representing Columbia University and the other representing the very body Columbia was asking for approval of its plans, he said. “If AKRF was brought in to have a results-oriented process ... as I said in the brief, you can’t serve two masters.”
ESDC is contesting Judge Shirley Kornreich's ruling, saying some of the documents requested are protected because communications between itself and AKRF are confidential and exempt from Freedom of Information Law requests. FOIL offers exemptions for deliberative communications within a government agency, and in the past courts have recognized that since many government agencies use consultants to act on their behalf, exemptions should also be extended to consultants standing in the shoes of a government agency. ESDC argues in its appeal of the Tuck-It-Away decision that AKRF was retained to provide “accurate and objective information” and “AKRF’s reputation depends on using its good judgment” providing agency decision makers with unbiased information.
