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August 5, 2009
In bid for appeal in case challenging AY environmental review, petitioners claim ESDC bias, cite absence of trend study, Catterson's concurrence
Atlantic Yards Report
More legal analysis from Norman Oder.
In a request (PDF) for the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, to review the case challenging the environmental review for Atlantic Yards, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) and 25 co-petitioners question whether the "bias and corruption" demonstrated by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) renders the agency's findings invalid.
The memorandum of law draws significantly on a concurring opinion by Appellate Division Justice James Catterson, which reads more like a dissent, and also points out omissions in the Appellate Division’s February 2009 dismissal of the case.
That dismissal upheld Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden’s dismissal of the case. Briefs from the defendant ESDC are due this month. The Court of Appeals, which is already considering an appeal in the separate case challenging the use of eminent domain, is not required to accept this case.
Crime stats
The February ruling, for example, neglected to address the claim that the ESDC, in the Blight Study conducted by environmental consultant AKRF, manipulated statistics to contend that the 22-acre project site suffered from more criminal activity than nearby areas. (In my coverage in February, I missed this omission.)
The petitioners note that AKRF
responded to public complaints that it had misrepresented crime data in the non-ATURA sectors by simply asserting that it had “accurately described the blighted conditions on the project site.”
Posted by eric at August 5, 2009 9:18 AM