A City Council member of Brooklyn, Letitia James, introduced legislation yesterday that would bar city funds from going toward projects that use eminent domain to transfer property from one private landowner to another.

The bill, co-sponsored by 14 council members, comes six months after Mayor Bloomberg endorsed a plan to seize privately owned homes and small businesses in the Prospect Heights neighborhood – which lies inside Ms. James’s district – to make room for developer Bruce Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards complex. Mr. Bloomberg has pledged $100 million in city subsidies for the Ratner project, which would include a professional basketball arena along with 7 million square feet of commercial and residential space.

Ms. James said the bill “was obviously in response to Atlantic Yards, but the abuse of eminent domain is happening all over the city.” A plan by Columbia University to build an 18-acre extension of its campus in West Harlem could also involve the use of eminent domain.

A council member of East New York who is a co-sponsor of the legislation, Charles Barron, said the bill might not be approved in time to halt the Ratner project. “If those who support the Ratner project think that this will impact Ratner, they might not sign on,” he said.

The bill is part of a nationwide backlash against the Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. New London, in which a razor-thin majority of five justices adopted an expansive interpretation of municipalities’ power to seize private property.

A Washington-based advocacy group, the Castle Coalition, assisted Ms. James in drafting the bill. The coalition is an arm of a self-described libertarian law firm, the Institute of Justice, which represented Susette Kelo and other New London homeowners who could soon be evicted as a result of the high court’s ruling. Some uses of eminent domain could still receive city support under Ms. James’s bill, such as the seizure of private property to make way for a hospital or a railroad. And under the bill, the city could take over properties that have been abandoned or that have become “public nuisances.”

The speaker of the council, Gifford Miller, has not yet taken a position on the bill, his spokesman, Seth Gladstone, said.