No Land Grab: Court Says ESDC Has to Take Another Look: More headlines

July 16, 2011

Court Says ESDC Has to Take Another Look: More headlines

New York Post, Judge: Not so fast, Atlantic Yards
By Rich Calder

Construction of the Nets' new Brooklyn arena may be on pace to be completed next year, but a state judge's ruling yesterday puts much of the rest of the embattled $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in further jeopardy.

Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman ruled the Empire State Development Corp. illegally approved changes to the Prospect Heights project in 2009 by relying on an out-of-date, pie-in-the-sky 10-year timeline for the plan, which also includes 16 residential and office towers.

Instead, the effects of a project that could take 25 years to build should have been considered, she said.

Friedman isn't requiring developer Bruce Ratner to halt construction on the arena, which will house the NBA team, or the rest of his project's long-delayed first phase. But she did order the corporation to conduct a new environmental review for the project's larger second phase, which includes 11 of the residential towers -- a move that could set it back many more years.

Curbed, Atlantic Yards Gets (Probably) Meaningless Slap on the Wrist

It's a little late, but a New York Supreme Court judge has ruled that the Empire State Development Corporation should have given the Atlantic Yards project a more thorough environmental review before approving it in 2009. Oops. So what does the rebuke mean for the future of Atlantic Yards? Not much! Or a lot, depending on who you ask. The Journal notes that the judge won't be ordering a construction halt on Atlantic Yards' first phase, which includes the Nets arena, to be finished next year, and four towers. But the judge did request a new environmental review for the project's second phase, and the Post predicts this could set that phase back significantly. Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn has taken the opportunity to urge Governor Cuomo for a "complete reassessment" of the project. Doesn't hurt to try, right?

Courthouse News Service, Court Orders New Study of Atlantic Yards Project
By ADAM KLASFELD

The agency supervising New York's controversial Atlantic Yards project must reevaluate how extensive delays in the second phase of enormous development will affect the surrounding communities, a state court judge ruled.

The results of the supplemental study may unravel plans to build more than two-thirds of the project's high-rise buildings, critics of the project say.

...

Established in 2004, the nonprofit Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn has been leading 26 community and neighborhood groups in a lawsuit against the developers and state agencies behind Atlantic Yards.

Citing the Final Environmental Impact Statement, the organization says that the project's skyscrapers will cover blot out the sun from nearby neighborhoods, flood communities with game-time traffic surges and drive out local residents in a process they describe as "instant gentrification."

Although the judge did not grant all of the demands sought by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), the organization said in a statement that it was "very pleased" with the ruling.

"DDDB has always argued that the claimed benefits were illusory and would never occur and the community would be burdened by a poorly conceived project," the organization's legal director Candace Carponter said in a statement. "It is now clear that the timeframes and benefits of the original project were never even remotely feasible."

Posted by steve at July 16, 2011 4:39 PM