City Reevaluating Duffield St. Eminent Domain Plan

The city says it will withdraw its eminent domain findings and hold a new hearing for the Duffield Street houses that are supposed to be seized in order to build a park and underground parking lot. The announcement comes after Downtown Brooklyn residents and activists filed an Eminent Domain Procedure Law Petition challenging the city’s plans. The decision does not signal that the city is going to reconsider the historic preservation of the Duffield Street properties, some of which are believed to have ties to the Underground Railroad, but that the how’s and why’s of the eminent domain plan are going to be reassessed. According to Duffield St. Underground, it gives Duffield advocates a chance to use political pressure to change the footprint of properties threatened with governmental confiscation.
City Withdrawing ED Findings [Duffield St. Underground]
HPD OK’s Seizure of Duffield St. Homes [Brownstoner]
Abolition Panel a Salve for Duffield Street Concerns? [Brownstoner]
Duffield Preservationists Fight Back with Lawsuit [Brownstoner]