« Property Owners Fight Against Atlantic Yards Project In Court | Main | Judge Poses Tough Questions to Atlantic Yards Backers »
February 8, 2007
Opening salvos fired in Atlantic Yards case
MetroNY
By Patrick Arden
The argument over using eminent domain for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan primarily boils down to this exchange in court yesterday:
Matthew Brinckerhoff, lawyer for the locals, said the case should move on to discovery, when documents might reveal the ESDC [Empire State Development Corporation] had used its “awesome” powers “to give benefits to one person.” Despite the project’s claims of public benefits — including building affordable housing — he believed the facts surrounding the development strongly implied “the purpose was never public.”
“If the benefit is incidental,” he said, “it doesn’t count.”
In an earlier filing, [Forest City] Ratner attorney Jeffrey Braun wrote, “Plaintiffs’ opposing memorandum is engagingly written, but that is true of many works of fiction.”
Yesterday Brinckerhoff answered Braun’s “colorful” characterization.
“A billion dollars is a lot for one developer to make,” he said. “We are pleading facts. We plead the site was chosen by Ratner. There’s evidence there were meetings between Ratner and the mayor’s office. Ratner approached [Mayor Michael] Bloomberg and [Deputy Mayor Daniel] Doctoroff. Then he bought the Nets.”
By going through the ESDC, Brinckerhoff continued, the project avoided city land-use procedures. It was only after a 2005 Supreme Court decision that “they decided to tout” the idea that the area was “blighted.” Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Tom Kelly “said on more than one occasion Ratner had obtained the railyards.” The MTA finally issued a request for proposals, but refused to disqualify Ratner’s lowball bid, even though he did not provide all of the requested documents. Extell offered $100 million more in its bid, Brinckerhoff noted, and its plans included no eminent domain requirement.
“These are not facts,” responded Douglas Kraus, a lawyer represesenting the ESDC but paid for by Ratner. “These are assertions about what the facts may show if he was allowed to do discovery. . . . The issue is whether government is doing something that’s permissible.”
NoLandGrab: To the layperson, it would seem that ESDC lawyer Douglas Kraus makes a strong argument for the suit to move forward: the answer to whether Brinckerhoff's "assertions" are facts will come out if "he were allowed to do discovery"*
* According to Merriam-Webster, "discovery" is "the usually pretrial disclosure of pertinent facts or documents by one or both parties to a legal action or proceeding."
Posted by lumi at February 8, 2007 6:39 AM