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December 2, 2009
Court of Appeals denies appeal in EIS case; no effort to engage Justice Catterson's fiery concurrence criticizing ESDC's Blight Study
Atlantic Yards Report
In a decision announced today, the state Court of Appeals denied without comment a motion to appeal the challenge to the Atlantic Yards environmental review. It was another blow to Atlantic Yards opponents, who nonetheless cited new pending suits challenging the project.
The challenge to the environmental impact statement (EIS) was dismissed first at the trial court level and then by the Appellate Division, with Justice James Catterson writing a concurrence that had the tone of a dissent, slamming the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) "for being used as a tool of the developer to displace and destroy neighborhoods that are ‘underutilized'."
While Catterson said his hands were tied, the petitioners hoped to leverage his dismay at the limits of the law to get the state's highest court to look at the "ESDC’s obligations under SEQRA [State Environmental Quality Review Act], the standard of review of a blight determination and legal ability of ESDC to lease a civic project to a for-profit entity under the UDCA [Urban Development Corporation Act]."
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In choosing not to accept the case, the Court of Appeals chose not to engage with claims regarding consultant AKRF's misrepresentations of crime data and the failure to analyze real estate rents and values, as was requested in the original contract with AKRF.
NoLandGrab: The court's denial effectively means that the State of NY can take people's homes and businesses simply based upon a "blight study," which need only identify blight conditions — regardless of whether they are actually in a project's footprint, as in the case of the "crime study" — and which may disregard any inconvenient facts.
New York has been described as one of the worst abusers of eminent domain. After yesterday's denial by the courts, any doubts to that statement have surely been laid to rest.
Posted by lumi at December 2, 2009 7:15 AM