Appellate Division overturns ESDC's use of eminent domain for Columbia expansion; how different is it from AY?

From the majority opinion in the Appellate Division's 3-2 overturning of the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) planned use of eminent domain for the Columbia University expansion:

It is recognized that Kelo, as described below, did not concern an area characterized as "blighted." However, the blight designation in the instant case is mere sophistry. It was utilized by ESDC years after the scheme was hatched to justify the employment of eminent domain but this project has always primarily concerned a massive capital project for Columbia. Indeed, it is nothing more than economic redevelopment wearing a different face.

So too did the Atlantic Yards petitioners argue that blight was a pretext because it wasn't mentioned as a justification for the project for more than a year after it was announced--an issue ignored by the majority in the Court of Appeals decision last week.

Underutilization

Wrote Justice James Catterson (who also filed a fiery concurrence in the case challenging the AY environmental review):

The most egregious conclusion offered in support of the finding of blight is that of underutilization. AKRF and Earth Tech allege the existence of blight from, inter alia, the degree of utilization, or percentage of maximum permitted floor area ratio ("FAR") to which lots are built. The theoretical justification for using the degree of utilization of development rights as an indicator of blight is the inference that it reflects owners' inability to make profitable use of full development rights due to lack of demand. Lack of demand can only be determined in relation to the FAR when combined with the zoning for the area in question. Manhattanville, for the relevant period, was zoned to allow maximum FAR of two, leaving owners essentially with a choice between a one or two-story structure. No rationale was presented by the respondents for the wholly arbitrary standard of counting any lot built to 60% or less of maximum FAR as constituting a blighted condition.

This is the exact same ratio used in the Atlantic Yards Blight Study.
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State Court Rules Eminent Domain Use for Columbia West Harlem Campus Unconstitutional

In an unexpected major decision, a New York appellate court has overturned the use of eminent domain to create a new West Harlem campus for Columbia University, ruling the action unconstitutional.
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The decision, written by Justice James Catterson, finds a difference between the use of eminent domain for Columbia and in other cases such as the landmark Kelo v. New London case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 upheld the use of eminent domain for economic development. In the case of Columbia, the decision says, the clear beneficiary was Columbia, not the public. Columbia, by buying up property and not maintaining sidewalks, helped to create blight, the court found, and the university underwrote costs for the entire project, rather than the city or state committing funds:

"The record shows no evidence that ESDC placed any constraints upon Columbia's plans, required any accommodation of existing, or competing uses, or any limitations on the scale or configuration of Columbia's scheme for the annexation of Manhattanville.

Thus, the record makes plain that rather than the identity of the ultimate private beneficiary being unknown at the time that the redevelopment scheme was initially contemplated, the ultimate private beneficiary of the scheme for the private annexation of Manhattanville was the progenitor of its own benefit.
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In this case, the record overwhelmingly establishes that the true beneficiary of the scheme to redevelop Manhattanville is not the community that is supposedly blighted, but rather Columbia University, a private elite education institution. These remarkably astonishing conflicts with Kelo on virtually every level cannot be ignored, and render the taking in this case unconstitutional."