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April 6, 2007
Ratner gets new suit
Fourth action against Atlantic Yards names state, MTA
MetroNY
By Amy Zimmer
As Forest City Ratner prepares to demolish buildings and make way for its 8-million-square-foot, $4 billion Atlantic Yards development, the number of lawsuits trying to stop it are mounting.
A fourth was filed yesterday in New York State Supreme Court by a group of 26 community and environmental groups. It challenges the project’s environmental review process.
The lawsuit — against the Empire State Development Corporation, the Public Authorities Control Board, the developer and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — asks the state to conduct “a new and credible” environmental impact analysis and a preliminary injunction to halt the project.
“The 26 community groups involved feel very strongly that this is our environment and the ESDC completely failed us,” said Candace Carponter, legal chair of plaintiff Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. “They were supposed to make sure the project would have the least impact possible.”
Instead, Carponter called the ESDC’s review “unrealistic” and said it grossly under-reported impacts and ignored “substantial” public input.
“My daughter is 12 years old and even she knows there’s going to be tremendous traffic impacts because we drive down Atlantic Avenue every day,” Carponter said. “It’s not rocket science.”
Forest City Ratner and the groups that signed the project’s Community Benefits Agreement claim the suit is an attempt to derail the thousands of jobs and affordable housing the 16 skyscrapers and Nets basketball arena are expected to yield.
Posted by lumi at April 6, 2007 10:19 AM