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November 10, 2010
Judge Rebukes State Agency Over Atlantic Yards Timetable
City Room
by Andy Newman
It comes too late to halt construction, but a judge has issued a stinging rebuke to the state agency overseeing the $5 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, finding that it made “totally incomplete representations” in legal papers about how long it would take the project to get built, in “what appears to be yet another failure of transparency.”
On Tuesday, the judge, Marcy S. Friedman of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, ordered the agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, to justify its decision to require only a 10-year environmental impact statement. The agency’s own agreement with the developer, Forest City Ratner, allows 25 years for construction of the project, which includes a basketball arena, currently being built, and 16 residential and commercial towers. Forest City Ratner officials have acknowledged that the 10-year timetable was a best-case scenario.
Related coverage...
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill], The Day: Legal Setback for Atlantic Yards Project
Opponents of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards development celebrated a legal setback for the project yesterday, as a New York State Supreme Court judge ordered the Empire State Development Corporation to re-open the question of whether a further environmental review is needed.
NY Observer, Too Little, Too Late: Atlantic Yards Opponents Finally Win a Court Case
Maybe there is hope for those opposed to Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards project after all. Or at the very least, some vindication.
Yesterday, State Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman ruled that the Empire State Development Corporation erred in producing a modified timetable for the project last year, when it finally won state approval, and thus violated the state's environmental review process.
The courts have criticized the project before, but none have ever ruled against it, arguing that it is the legislature and its constitutionally mandated authorities, such as the ESDC, whose responsibility is to determine right from wrong when it comes to eminent domain and the like. This time, though, Friedman found the fecklessness to be actionable.
Gothamist, A Rare Victory for Atlantic Yards Foes
"With today’s ruling it is more evident than ever that the new governor has a job to do with the Atlantic Yards debacle," Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn co-founder (and former holdout) Daniel Goldstein told the New York Post. "The blight Ratner has created in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn can be fixed if Cuomo is willing to take the much-needed fresh look at Atlantic Yards that [yesterday’s] court ruling demands."
Brownstoner, Atlantic Yards Opponents Actually Win One
Atlantic Yards Report explains that while the ruling will not immediately effect construction, it could subject the Atlantic Yards project to further arguments in court.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Judge Orders Reassessment of 25-Year Atlantic Yards Project
Gib Veconi of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council said, “The Atlantic Yards Modified General Project Plan (MGPP) varied so drastically from the plan initially approved by the ESDC in 2006 that it could not escape the notice of the Court, and the decision today has confirmed that the Empire State Development Corporation must disclose the impacts of the Atlantic Yards project it agreed to, not the one it wishes would be built.”
Photo: H. Spencer Young/The Local
Posted by eric at November 10, 2010 10:25 PM