MTA Prepping Eminent Domain Use to Acquire 18 Properties

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority needs a dozen and a half properties it doesn’t own to make its Penn Station Access vision come true. It’s willing to do almost anything to get those properties.

The MTA board approved plans to acquire 18 properties split between the western Bronx and New Rochelle in Westchester County, Crain’s reported. The acquisitions would pave the way for the $3 billion extension of the Metro-North railroad.

The MTA will look to negotiate with property owners to acquire the sites; it’s unclear how much money the agency will put into that effort, which needs to be done in a “timely manner.” If that fails, the MTA is readying the use of eminent domain.

Eminent domain is the forced acquisition of private land for public use. Property owners would surrender their land at a fair market price to the government.

Eminent domain has popped up in MTA efforts before. The agency seized sites at 1801 and 1815 Park Avenue from the Durst Organization using eminent domain, paying the developer $40.7 million as it looked to expand the Q subway line. A lawsuit filed by the developer was ultimately settled, leaving control of the parcels in the hands of the MTA.

The properties at stake in the Bronx and New Rochelle are primarily parking lots and low-rise commercial buildings. The land is valuable to the MTA because it can support rail infrastructure and a group of planned stations in the Bronx neighborhoods of Co-op City, Parkchester, Morris Park and Hunts Point.

Penn Station Access is not expected to be completed until 2028 at the earliest, as Amtrak-owned land needed for construction remains inaccessible. The train route will utilize Amtrak’s Hell Gate Line before terminating at Penn Station, where Metro-North service doesn’t yet go.

Last summer, City Council rezoned 46 blocks around the four planned Metro-North stations. The late addition of parking mandates reduced the expected housing units able to be developed from 7,500 units to fewer than 7,000.

— Holden Walter-Warner