After judge's decision, the city is still trying to disenfranchise Brooklyn homeowners

Kings County Politics

With millions of dollars of intergenerational black and brown community wealth on the line, the city argued in federal court filings yesterday, that its Third Party Transfer (TPT) program passes U.S. Constitution muster, and that property owners who have had their fully paid off properties taken with no compensation should be denied recourse in their effort to certify a class action lawsuit.

Under the TPT program – the subject of an ongoing KCP investigative series – the city seizes properties they deem “distressed,” and give them to the public/private non-profit Neighborhood Restore, who in turn give the property for a nominal fee to a qualified non-profit or for-profit developer. The program was created in the late 1970s, when the city had a large number of abandoned and neglected buildings.

However, with gentrification, these properties, and others in the same program, are now worth millions of dollars in market value. Almost all were completely paid for with no mortgage and located in traditionally black and brown neighborhoods, which are becoming increasingly gentrified.

In early March, three of the property owners, McConnell Dorce, Cecilia Jones and Sherlivia Thomas-Murchinson, filed papers in the U.S. Southern District of New York Federal District Court alleging their properties were unconstitutionally confiscated under the in rem foreclosure process.
Their filing was to seek certification to pursue a class action lawsuit, which if successful, could cost the city tens of millions of dollars and the return of dozens of property.

 Their suit was bolstered in late March, when Kings County Supreme Court Judge Mark Partnow ordered the city to give six Central Brooklyn property owners their property back, restoring millions of dollars of intergenerational wealth in the black and Latino community.