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September 23, 2010
Really No Hope For Atlantic Yards Opponents
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
There was something devilishly brilliant to how Daniel Goldstein, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, and a handful of lawsuits nearly brought down the massive $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project. For years, the arena cum condos were held off by one suit after another, first at the federal level, then in the state courts. The legal challenges went on for so long that when the recession hit, it nearly killed the damn thing. (Someone should really write a book about all this.)
Obviously, it didn't work, as the project found a savior in Russia, broke ground in March, and the arena is (maybe) on its way to opening in time for the 2012-2013 basketball season.
Still, there are a few remaining court cases to unwind, and as the indefatigable Norman Oder reports today, two of them have been tossed out by the Brooklyn Supreme Court. On Monday, Justice Abraham Gerges yet again ruled that the state was justified in its use of eminent domain at the Atlantic Yards site. The particulars of the case charged that the Empire State Development Corporation needed to file a new set of Determinations and Findings because the project had changed so much.
As before, Yards opponents could take some small consolation from the judge's decision, in that he essentially said what the state did was a terrible thing, but it not being the judiciary's place to overrule the legislature (and its constitutionally mandated subsidiaries, like the ESDC), there was really nothing he could do about it....
Related coverage...
NetsDaily, Arena Critics Lose Again...and Again
Barclays Center construction continues apace with Bruce Ratner telling friends it's on schedule for completion in late spring/early summer 2012. At the same time, the same Brooklyn judge who pushed Daniel Goldstein to sell out back in April dismissed two of the last challenges to the arena on Monday.
Posted by eric at September 23, 2010 10:17 AM