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August 3, 2006
Judge: No case for park foes
Metro NY
By Amy Zimmer
Though it's a boondoggle of a slightly different species, occasionally we cover news about the Brooklyn Bridge Park proposal because it gives us a chance to make an important point about both projects:
Why does the Brooklyn Bridge Park have to be self-sustaining, while Bruce Ratner's private Atlantic Yards development will get nearly $2 billion in subsidies?
From the Metro article:
Brooklyn Heights residents who sued to demolish plans to build condos in the proposed Brooklyn Bridge Park received a legal blow yesterday when a judge told them they had no case.
Although Brooklyn State Supreme Court Justice Lawrence Knipel made no official ruling at yesterday’s pretrial hearing on the lawsuit filed by condo foes, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Legal Defense Fund, he said, “I can see policy reasons for not putting these buildings next to a park. But why legally?”
Through a Freedom-of-Information request, Metro also uncovered a letter which bolsters the charge that the Condos-in-a-Park scheme totally ignores public input:
Foes of the Brooklyn Bridge Park condos who claim they’ve been shut out of the planning process had their concerns echoed by an unlikely source.
Top officials at the pro-park Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy wrote a letter obtained by Metro to deputy mayors Dan Doctoroff and Paticia Harris blasting the state agency in charge of the project for “poor communication [that] has lead to strong park opposition.”
Posted by lumi at August 3, 2006 9:07 AM