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March 10, 2010
Despite citing the ESDC's "deplorable lack of transparency," judge defers to agency in dismissing challenge to 2009 AY approval
Atlantic Yards Report
Just this morning, I wrote that it was unlikely that the major remaining Atlantic Yards lawsuit, that challenging the Empire State Development Corporation’s (ESDC) September 2009 approval of the 2009 Modified General Project Plan (MGPP), would be embraced by a judge, given the enormous deference courts give to agencies like the ESDC.
Indeed, Justice Marcy Friedman today dismissed (PDF) that challenge, in cases brought by two coalitions of community groups, but did so with some scathing language, criticizing the ESDC’s “deplorable lack of transparency” and acknowledging that the ESDC’s use of a ten-year timeframe for the project buildout was supported “only minimally.”
As Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn noted, Friedman’s decision “ignores crucial development agreement documents that would prove otherwise, because the ESDC only released those documents after the legal record was closed”—in late January, I’d add, even though the documents were promised early in the month before the oral argument was to take place.
(According to the documents, the developer has 12 years to build Phase 1 and 25 years to build Phase 2.)
Posted by eric at March 10, 2010 5:48 PM