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May 20, 2009
Activists Vow Appeal of Atlantic Yards Ruling
GlobeSt.com reporter Cody Lyon filed this article on last Friday's court ruling that eminent domain may be used for Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards megaproject:
According to the court documents, the judges said much of the land to be acquired is "substandard, and that the taking [of it] is rationally related to the purpose of remedying these substandard conditions." They added, "any incidental profit that may inure to Forest City from the remediation of the blighted project site does not undercut the public purpose of the condemnation of the substandard land."
NoLandGrab: In plain English, the court is saying that Ratner's determination that the property in the footprint is blighted is correct and that any money he may make on the deal is "incidental" to the purpose of removing that blight.
...FCRC chair and CEO Bruce Ratner says in a statement... that he was confident the project will break ground this year, with the intent that the Nets will play ball in the Barclays Center in the 2011-2012 season.
...
[A] lawyer for the plaintiffs says the group will be appealing to the state’s Court of Appeals. And, if that court agrees to hear the case, Atlantic Yards could be in store for many more months of litigation.Drawing a line in the sand, Matthew Brinckerhoff, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, tells GlobeSt.com that Ratner has not acquired his client’s property yet, and until he does, he cannot build the arena.
NoLandGrab: Presciently, GlobeSt.com ran an image of the project commissioned by the Municipal Art Society, intended to show what an arena and one building would look like, which is what Ratner is currently publicly committing to for the foreseeable future.
Posted by lumi at May 20, 2009 5:52 AM