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December 15, 2010
ESDC response in timetable case: no stay needed, since arena's on its way, and 25-year outside date was known (but was 10-year buildout likely?)
Atlantic Yards Report
You wouldn't expect the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) to roll over, and the agency has responded to a request for a stay of Atlantic Yards construction with a flurry of arguments, notably that the arena is already well in progress, and that the 25-year outside date for project construction was long ago disclosed.
Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman, in her November 9 ruling on the Atlantic Yards timetable in favor of two community coalitions, did not resolve the issue. (The ruling came after an unusual reargument of a case that was decided March 10.)
Rather, she remanded the proceedings "to ESDC for findings on the impact of the Development Agreement and of the renegotiated MTA agreement on its continued use of a 10 year build-out for the Project, and on whether a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement [SEIS] is required or warranted."
ESDC says no SEIS is necessary, and that the Development Agreement's not so meaningful. ESDC staffers have been working on the required analysis, and it's likely that the report will be approved by the ESDC's directors at a meeting tomorrow.
The ESDC's legal response, embedded at bottom, will be followed by reply motions from the two coalitions, led by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and BrooklynSpeaks, and then oral argument before Friedman at noon on December 22.
Read on for more of the "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" arguments for which we've come to love the ESDC.
Posted by eric at December 15, 2010 9:53 AM