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November 30, 2010
PRESS RELEASE: Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Asks Court to Stay All Construction On Ratner's Atlantic Yards Project Site
Current Work on Project Is Illegal Under Court Ruling and State Environmental Law
Court Argument Scheduled for December 22
On Wednesday, November 24, twenty community organizations led by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) filed a motion with New York State Supreme Court seeking to halt all construction at developer Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project site.
An argument on the motion for a stay, in front of State Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman, has been scheduled for noon on December 22nd (that date is subject to change).
The motion for a stay follows the November 9 decision from Justice Friedman finding that the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) lacked a rational basis for assuming that Atlantic Yards project would be completed in ten years when the agency approved the project's 2009 Modified General Project Plan (MGPP). Specifically the ESDC hid a key development agreement from the court.
Justice Friedman ordered the ESDC to reconsider the need for a supplemental environmental impact statement based on the 25-year construction schedule provided for in the Development Agreement between ESDC and Forest City Ratner. ESDC had analyzed Atlantic Yards as a 10-year project and repeated this unsupported claim to the court. The Court's order requires a new analysis by the ESDC. Until and unless the ESDC complies with the Court order by undertaking a new analysis of the project's timetable and impacts—with a rational basis—continued work on the project would be illegal under state law.
In the stay motion papers, DDDB attorney Jeffrey S. Baker states that all construction work must stop until ESDC complies with the Court order, to allow work to continue would be "rewarding FCR and ESDC for their malfeasance."
The papers also state that only because Ratner and the ESDC "colluded in their misrepresentations to the Court" could arena construction begin. And that "ESDC failed in its public obligation to evaluate the Project honestly in the context of its known schedule for completion." And that Forest City Ratner, "motivated by profit, used its influence with ESDC to avoid meaningful review, although it never intended to complete the project within the supposed ten-year timeframe and, to the contrary, was actively negotiating contracts providing far longer timeframes."
A stay of all construction is needed to maintain the status quo, not just to prevent further harm to the environment but DDDB argues, "to assure that ESDC makes an honest appraisal of the potential environmental impacts of the project and seriously considers the consequences of a 25-year construction schedule."
One of the key consequences and impacts of a 25-year construction schedule is a paved 1,100 car "interim" surface parking lot taking up much of the second phase of the project site. The ESDC has yet to study and disclose the impacts of such a massive parking lot.
"Put simply, the ESDC colluded with Forest City Ratner to deceive the Court. Unless and until the ESDC follows the Court order, any work at the project site would be in violation of state environmental law and an affront to the community that would have to live with Ratner's developer's blight for decades," said DDDB legal director Candace Carponter.
Posted by eric at November 30, 2010 10:34 AM