## Facts

- Tudor City in Manhattan included two privately owned parks (about 15,000 square feet each) previously zoned to permit substantial development.
- After a 1970 sale, the owner proposed high-rise construction on the park sites consistent with existing zoning.
- In 1972, New York City adopted a “Special Park District” amendment that:
  - Rezoned the parks solely for park use open to the public, permitting only passive recreation.
  - Required daily public access during specified hours.
  - “Severed” the parks’ development (air) rights and offered transferable development rights (TDRs) usable on designated receiving lots within a transfer district.
- The parks functioned as public open space while the private owners bore maintenance costs and lost ordinary development opportunities; the TDRs were not effectively marketed or used.
- The purchase-money mortgagee and other interested parties challenged the amendment as unconstitutional and sought damages on an inverse-condemnation theory.
- Lower courts declared the amendment unconstitutional; the City appealed, and the private parties cross-appealed seeking compensation.

## Issues

1. Whether rezoning buildable private parks exclusively as public parks, eliminating reasonable income-producing or private use, exceeded constitutional limits on the police power under due process principles.
2. Whether the availability of TDRs could justify or offset the severe restriction on use imposed by the rezoning.
3. Whether the proper remedy for an unconstitutional zoning restriction was invalidation of the ordinance or monetary compensation for an alleged inverse taking.

## Decision

- The court held the Special Park District rezoning unconstitutional as applied to the Tudor City parks.
- The rezoning left owners with “bare title” while compelling a public park use and eliminating reasonable private use and economic value.
- The offered TDRs were too speculative and contingent to cure the deprivation caused by the rezoning.
- The court rejected claims for inverse-condemnation compensation; because private ownership was not displaced through eminent domain, the remedy was invalidation of the regulation and restoration of prior zoning, not damages.

## Legal Principles

- Land-use regulation under the police power must be reasonable and bear a substantial relation to legitimate objectives tied to health, safety, morals, or general welfare.
- A regulation that imposes a disproportionate economic burden on a small set of owners to provide a broadly shared public benefit can violate due process.
- Characterizing an invalid police-power regulation as a “taking without compensation” may describe its effect, but absent governmental displacement of private ownership, the typical remedy is declaratory/injunctive relief invalidating the regulation rather than compensation.
- Transferable development rights may be considered in evaluating impact, but contingent or uncertain value may render them inadequate to mitigate otherwise confiscatory restrictions.

## Conclusion

The court invalidated New York City’s rezoning of two privately owned parks for mandatory public park use because it unreasonably forced private owners to shoulder the economic burden of a public amenity, violating due process; it restored prior zoning and denied inverse-condemnation damages.


Fred F. French Investing Co. v. City of New York, 350 N.E.2d 381 (N.Y. 1976)