We were reading a real estate blog (GlobeSt.com) which referred to the recently enacted Public Authorities Reform Act of 2009. It made reference to the asserted fact that there were 1,098 public authorities in the State of New York. It also reported that according to the State Comptroller’s Web site, there are 256 major public authorities and 764 entities with local jurisdiction, as well as 70 entities affiliated with a state agency and eight entities with interstate or international jurisdiction. While we have not even attempted to read all of the enabling acts creating them, all those we have seen over a long period of time were granted the power of eminent domain. They run the gamut from the MTA to a plethora of Industrial Development Agencies (IDA) to the New York City Housing Authority.
As reported in Robert Caro’s biography of Robert Moses, one of the original creators of these authorities, the purpose of creating them was twofold, taking their activities out of the politics of the Legislature (“don’t look at me, they did the condemnation”) and providing a means for creating public improvements outside of the debt limit of the state. They started with entities such as the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and the Saw Mill River Parkway Authority and graduated to urban renewal authorities and industrial development agencies and agencies such as the Dormitory Authority, Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the New York State Thruway Authority.
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