« The board meeting brought to you by Atlantic Yards Report and the letters E, S, D, and C | Main | State OKs Ratner’s ‘impact’ »
November 17, 2006
DDDB: after Final EIS, second lawsuit in the works
Atlantic Yards Report
With the release Wednesday of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) regarding Atlantic Yards, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) is preparing to file a legal challenge to deficiencies in the FEIS, a second lawsuit—after a recent eminent domain case—regarding the project.
State law requires that the agency conducting the review, in this case the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), take a “hard look” at the environmental impacts. DDDB legal chair Candace Carponter said yesterday that the FEIS fails to adequately explore alternatives to the project or crucial issues like emergency response times for police and fire service.
“The part about the traffic is almost a joke,” she added, speaking at a community forum held at the Hanson Place United Methodist Church in Fort Greene. “We believe there are major flaws, because they worked so fast.” The FEIS took only about six weeks to produce.
The project is expected to be approved by the ESDC board later this month, then must proceed to the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB), where a unanimous vote is required by the three controlling members, departing Gov. George Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.
Within 30 days, Carponter said, the lawsuit would be filed. She said that 30 attorneys and paralegals had volunteered to help DDDB’s retained counsel.
The rest of the article covers this issue and others that were discussed at last night's Community Forum on Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at November 17, 2006 8:43 AM