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March 30, 2009
In effort to appeal EIS case, plaintiffs charge "evidence of corruption" in ESDC's blight study
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder distills the appeal of the EIS lawsuit.
On the same day that developer Forest City Enterprises asserted in a press release that "only one material lawsuit" is pending in the Atlantic Yards case, project opponent Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) announced that one other lawsuit may indeed be alive.
In an effort to reverse an appeals court’s February decision rejecting an appeal of a trial judge's dismissal of the case challenging the Atlantic Yards environmental review, DDDB and 25 co-plaintiff community and civic groups have asked (PDF) the Appellate Division, First Department, to allow the state’s highest court to review the decision, arguing that the blight study by Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) did not contain simply errors or misjudgments but rather is associated with “evidence of corruption” and that a for-profit company should not be able to lease a publicly-owned arena for a dollar a year.
Decision said to be tainted
The ESDC, argue the appellants, was “purposefully disregarding the contrary economic conditions and development trends which it asked its own consultant, AKRF, to study; knowingly misrepresenting the effect of the Vanderbilt Rail Yards on the non-ATURA [Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area] portion as impeding development, while the non-ATURA portion and adjacent areas were enjoying substantial, desirable private redevelopment and rapidly rising property values; and knowingly misrepresenting the crime rate in the non-ATURA portion as higher than surrounding areas, while its own data showed just the opposite.”
“Simply put, New York law requires ESDC to do more than simply throw out a number of purported justifications for its “blight” determination without regard to truth, accuracy, or logic, secure in the knowledge that as long as any one of its proffered justifications can be called ‘rational,’ its blight determination will not be disturbed by judicial review,” the petitioners argue.
Thus the “the court should find the agency’s ultimate determination irremediably tainted, regardless of whether a few of its proffered justifications might arguably be valid.”
Posted by eric at March 30, 2009 10:07 AM