side could be taken outright in order to govern their future use and development. In an early New York case, a legislative attempt to authorize the taking of more land than was actually needed was condemned by the court in the following language: “This power has been supposed to be convenient when the greater part of a lot is taken, and only a small part left not required for public use, and that small part of but little value in the hands of the owner. In such case the corporation has been supposed best qualified to take and dispose of such parcels, or gores, as they have sometimes been called; and probably this assumption of power has been acquiesced in by the proprietors. I know of no case where the power has been questioned and where it has received the deliberate sanction of this court. Suppose a case where only a few feet or even inches are wanted from one end of a lot to widen a street, and a valuable building stands upon the other end of such lot, would the power be conceded to exist to take the whole lot, whether the owner consented or not? Or suppose the commissioners had deemed it expedient and proper in this case, in the language of the statute, to take the whole of the churchyard, the act would have been equally within the letter of the statute with their act in the present case; and yet no one would suppose that the legislature ever intended to confer such a power. The quantity of the residue of any lot cannot vary the principle. The owner may be very unwilling to part with only a few feet; and I hold it equally incompetent for the legislature thus to dispose of private property, whether feet or acres are the subject of this assumed power. I am clearly of opinion that the commissioners have no right to take the strip of land in question against the consent of the corporation of Trinity Church.”[83] While there is a dearth of modern authority on this subject, it is believed that the courts would still accept the reasoning of this Albany Street case, and would sustain the position of an owner who refused to surrender his property in order merely to diminish the cost of a public improvement. Such enactments, however, though void as to an unwilling property owner, are valid in so far as they confer authority on the city to take and pay for the whole parcel with the owner’s consent, and to spend the people’s money for that purpose.[84] A plan for acquiring a large area by private purchase could not be successfully carried out if one or two of the proprietors could refuse to part with their property, and such a scheme must therefore be confined within the limits of the power of eminent domain.