ESDC’s determination upheld that three blocks outside urban renewal area were blighted. In 2003, Forest City Ratner proposed to redevelop a 22-acre site in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. The site included portions of the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area and portions of three privately-owned blocks outside the renewal area. After Ratner’s proposal was accepted, the Empire State Development Corporation designated itself as lead agency for the project under state environmental law. ESDC prepared an environmental impact statement and a blight study, and later approved the findings in both documents, including the finding that portions of the three privately-owned blocks were blighted. A coalition of local business owners and residents challenged ESDC’s blight finding in the non-renewal area and the sufficiency of the environmental impact statement. Supreme Court Judge Joan A. Madden rejected the challenge, and the decision was appealed. 5 CityLand 16 (Feb. 15, 2008).

On appeal, the coalition argued, among other things, that ESDC arbtrarily selected build years that distorted the project’s potential environmental impacts. The coalition also argued that ESDC’s failure to consider the positive real estate trends in the non-renewal area led it to unreasonably conclude that the proposed project was uniquely capable of alleviating blight in the non-renewal area. The coalition further claimed that ESDC’s finding of blight for the non-renewal area was unsubstantiated. (more…)

Atlantic Yards development site along Atlantic Avenue.

Court found ESDC’s environmental analysis insufficient due to change in Atlantic Yards project, but refused to halt project. In 2006, the Empire State Development Corporation approved the general project plan for Forest City Ratner Companies’ Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. The $4 billion project includes a sports arena and sixteen high-rise buildings. Ratner agreed to purchase air rights from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority at the beginning of the project in order to facilitate the development of six of the buildings. The project’s environmental review assumed a ten-year build-out for the project and a completion date of 2016.

In June 2009, Ratner and the MTA renegotiated the terms of their agreement to permit Ratner to acquire the air rights over a fifteen-year period extending to 2030. In September 2009, ESDC adopted the project’s modified general project plan, but continued to assume a ten-year build-out with an estimated project completion date of 2019. As such, ESDC concluded that no additional environmental review was required.

Two community groups, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, filed a petition claiming that ESDC ignored the impacts of the renegotiated MTA agreement on the project’s time frame for construction (more…)